"Be it so!" I cried passionately; "that has nothing to do with you;" and I shut the door in her face. Every fibre of my body quivered with rage.
They threaten me with the gallows, or with the suicidal dagger of a Cato! I fear them not.
My poor chiefs! Half a year later they were rushing along the self-same path, at the end of which so many monsters were lurking. I only lost my hair in the hands of these monsters, but they lost their heads. Their own prophecy was fulfilled on them both.
From that day forth I was very wrath with the lady with the eyes like the sea.
CHAPTER IX
THE WOMAN WHO WENT ALONG WITH ME
And now we'll go back to the day which forms so remarkable a turning-point in the life of the Hungarian nation, the 15th March, 1848.
It did not come without due preparation. The emancipation of the people, a free press and a free soil, equality of taxation and equality before the law—all these splendid ideas had been fought for during the last ten years by those great minds which towered above their fellows. The time had now arrived, the process had been decided, the judgment lived in the heart of every honest patriot. The great sacrifices which the metamorphosis required were not demanded, but volunteered. We debated about them in the Diet, party against party, with all the fervour of conviction.