Things too have tears.... What if the empty house were pillaged? If I were never to see again the dear things full of memories?... Why do you leave us here? the abandoned things seemed to ask, and I felt as if I were parting from devoted, living beings, which patiently shared our fate.
My mother called from below, waiting, ready to start, in the hall with my brother, who had come for us so that he might be there should the carriage be waylaid. As we went out of it the old house lapsed into lethargy and everything closed its eyes. The key turned, the pebbles clattered on the drive, and the carriage went slowly down the slope of the hill.
At the bridge over the Devil’s Ditch my brother-in-law was waiting with his little daughter, and she got into the carriage. Reckless soldiers had overrun the hills and life was so insecure that they did not dare to keep the young girl at home. In town things may be quieter.... Beyond the cemetery we came to the booth of the excisemen. We waited for a time in the mist and as no policeman, no exciseman appeared, we passed on through the open barrier. The outlines of armed soldiers and sailors peopled the ill-lit streets of Buda. The forms of a few frightened citizens who were trying to get home appeared now and then, but were soon absorbed by the night.
Beyond the bridge over the Danube the town was floating in light. Big arc-lamps were burning, as of old when a victory was reported from the battle-fields. Flags floated from the houses. In the fashionable streets the crowds thronged for their evening walk, and as the carriage passed Károlyi’s portrait could be seen in the shop windows among stockings and ribbons, furs and sausages.
I felt relieved when we came out of the sea of people into quieter streets. The carriage stopped at our house in Stonemason Street. Under the porch a half-turned-on gas lamp was burning, which threw a light up to the ceiling but left everything under our feet in darkness. The house seemed to have become shabby during the summer. The staircase was dull and ugly. The fires smoked and nothing was as it used to be when we came in olden times to our friendly winter home. Disorder, covered furniture, draped pictures. It was like wearing summer clothes on a frosty winter day.
“Well, we are settled for the winter now, mother dear,” I laughed, to make it seem more cheerful. My mother laughed too and we both pretended to be happy.
A clumsy little German maid rushed about among the trunks and did nothing. Our faithful farmer neighbour, who had kindly escorted the luggage, was struggling with the fires. The housekeeper boiled some water over a spirit lamp. My mother went to and fro, and wherever her hand reached order sprang up. All at once the little green room assumed a friendly appearance and tea steamed in the cups on the white covered table. Home was home again and we smiled at each other.
“The many war winters have passed, and this is going to pass too.”
“This is worse than the winters of the war,” my mother said with unusual gloom.