With that pressure of our hands our engagement began.
I have recorded the whole of this episode in order to explain how it was that that portrait found its way to my table, which was able to convert in an instant the smiling face of the lady with the eyes like the sea into the hideous features of Iblis. Four months had passed away since then.
And the honeymoon was in keeping with the engagement. The roar of cannon and the clash of swords was the music that played at my wedding.
Oh what a marriage night was that!
At the very moment when the happy bridegroom asks his bride, "Dost thou love me as I love thee?" at that very moment there is the roll of drums in the streets, and the cry goes forth, "To arms, citizens!" An Italian regiment had revolted against the Hungarian Government. Without waiting for a kiss or an embrace, I had to snatch up my musket and hurry off to the place of meeting, and thence to go straight into fire among the flying bullets. We had to storm the Károly Barracks. By dawn the mutinous regiment had to lay down its weapons, and the bridegroom, with his face sooty with smoke, returned home, and again put the question to his bride, "Dost thou love me as I love thee?"
And the answer? Ah! the heart alone can feel it, the lips cannot express it.
That was our honeymoon. With the shame of lost battles in our hearts, and despairing even of divine justice, those who can love under such circumstances must love dearly indeed!
And then out into the desolate world, in the midst of a Siberian winter, with everything crackling with cold in a night lit only by the blaze of artillery, forcing one's way along through the snowy deserts of the Alföld[55] with the retreating Honved[56] army! Passing the night in an inhospitable hut where the closed door had frozen to the ground by morning, and the roll of drums and the blare of trumpets aroused us to toil on still farther! Those who can love under such circumstances must love indeed!
[55] The low-land. The name given to the great Hungarian plain.
[56] Defending the country. The title of the Hungarian national forces.