At the police station I received but cold comfort.
“I don’t see what good it can do to take your complaints down,” said a little man who seemed to be a clerk. “Last night sixteen villas were pillaged on one hill alone. As for the town, God alone knows how many houses and shops have been visited by burglars. We can’t go into such matters. Where could we find enough detectives, when those we have already have other irons in the fire?”
“They are searching for counter-revolutionists,” said a gentleman, whose flat had been burgled last night too. “Robbery is free in this country nowadays.”
I was sent from the ground-floor to the second, and thence to the ground-floor again. I wandered through stuffy corridors from one untidy office, smelling of ink, to another, and at last I was promised that inquiries would be made.
Here too everything had changed. New men had replaced the old Hungarian officials in the police-force. They had got this into their hands too.
The north wind blew sharply across the bridge, bringing a promise of snow. Like giants’ brides, the white hills of Buda stood up against the cold wintry sky, and on them the bare trees cast shadows like blue veins over the sunlit snow. Everything glittered. For a moment the beauty of it thrust the town, the trouble, and the burgled house into the background. On the way I met my sister Mary. She too was coming from the police station and had two constables with her. The crown had been removed from the cap of one of them, the other still wore it.
“So you have not taken it off?” said I.
“Kings may come and kings may go, but the holy crown will remain in its place,” he answered.
“Are you very busy?” I asked, to change the subject.
“It would not do for things to remain as they are.”