One has to knock at one’s own door nowadays, for it cannot be left unbolted. Loafing soldiers pay visits to houses. One hears of nothing but burglaries.
As I went upstairs impressions of the streets of the decaying town passed through my mind: the furious struggling crowd of crammed electric trams; the ‘new rich’ in fur coats; dirty flags, the remains of last month’s posters on grimy walls; coffee-houses with music within, crude noises and lewd conversations; people loafing in front of coal merchants’ cellars. The horror of the foul streets was still with me when I reached my room.
My mother called to me. She was sitting in her room with a shaded lamp on the table, and on the green velvet table-cloth the kings and queens of a pack of little patience cards promenaded as if in a field.
“Where have you been?” my mother asked.
“I went to see about the coal.”
“Well?”
I did not want to tell her my visit had been in vain. “I shall have to go again. I couldn’t settle matters to-day.” I thought of our empty cellar and of the coal-office, the long queue of waiting people. Scenes passed before me like the pictures of a kinematograph.... The window of the Pesti Naplo. People were waiting there too.... Big letters, latest news... Czechs, Roumanians, Serbs, and the names of ancient Hungarian towns.... People said nothing and craned their necks to see.... Everywhere the same tired faces.... And as if one voice were speaking for them all: “It is no good struggling ... we can’t get out ... it was all in vain”.... Yes, it is past the remedy of generals and statesmen....
All the time my mother was looking at me thoughtfully over her patience cards. She said nothing, asked no questions, but leant forward and stroked my head. It was unlike her: her tenderness was hardly ever visible or heard. It was always there, but quietly, underneath. She rarely showed her feelings, and lived behind a veil of self-control. In my childhood it was only when I was ill or down-hearted that she showed her true self, for my sake, not for hers. But lately, now that events had caused old age to quicken his steps, the veil had been more often drawn aside. I wanted so much to say something, to thank her for what was beyond thanks. She stroked my hair.... How soothing it was! Her hand knew a sweet, tender secret which it revealed only on the brows of her children when they bent under the weight of sorrow. Dear loving hands! They can accomplish what neither generals nor statesmen can.
Something I cannot express in words rose within me in that moment. Was it a foreboding, was it the clue that we were all seeking, was it a presentiment of something I was to do? I cannot answer, but it was something that should throw itself before the torrent of destruction, should raise a dam before the motherland and its women, the faithful, the prolific, the holders of Hungary’s future.... To protect those who see things with eyes different from those of generals and statesmen.
A carriage stopped in front of the house. Who could it be? For days I had seen practically nobody. Social intercourse had almost ceased; one did not even know what was happening to one’s best friends or where they were. Everyone took refuge in his own home, and the threads that had been broken in October had not yet been retied. A knock at the door, the hinges creaked. Steps in the corridor. It was my friend Countess Raphael Zichy.