“Get me the text,” Count Julius Batthyany shouted, “and I will have the two documents posted up, side by side, and within twenty-four hours the whole government will collapse.” His beautiful mother looked at him doubtfully: “Do you imagine that there is so much liberty left in this town? The posters would be torn to shreds before they could be stuck on the walls.” “They promised us the freedom of the press and of opinions, and we get nothing but lies.” “Let us organise against them. That is the only way to defeat their lies,” said Countess Batthyany, “it was with that intent that I asked you to come.” “You are thinking of the women?” “Yes....” “I have thought of them too,” I said. “There are several of us who think the same. We must find some common-place programme to hide our real purpose: women alone can rebuild the lost faith.” “Work out the programme and take the leadership of the movement.” “I don’t want to be anything but a common soldier,” I answered; “I am only an author and know nothing of these things.” “For all that you will have to do it. Your lead will be followed. I want to work too.” I shook my head. I was ready to do anything, but did not feel the vocation for leadership. “We will try too,” said Count Batthyany. “Somehow we must succeed in getting rid of this crowd.” “We will talk it all over,” said his mother. So she is with us too, I pondered when leaving. She, the aunt of both Count Michael and Countess Károlyi! How many of us felt the same thing! It seemed to be floating in the air, and waiting for someone among us to put it into words. The street had changed while I had been in the house. No lamps were burning, the trams were not running, and the snow was falling heavily. Had a strike broken out suddenly? Was the supply of coal exhausted? Or was it because of Heltai’s sailors? The little side-streets gaped dismally in the dark. A ramshackle cab trotted through the snow. “How much to Stonemason Street?” I asked. “Sixty crowns,” the driver answered from his seat. “Not so long ago it would have been two crowns....” He drove on, cursing me, and I went on, ploughing my way through the snow. There was an uncanny silence about the place. Out in the country the silence of the woods and meadows is that of rest, while here in town silence seems to be the preliminary of some hidden attack. That was what it felt like now. Against my will I was looking behind me all the time, and I hurried as fast as I could across the entrances of the alleys. The bright, clean streets, policemen, protection, security of the past—where have they all gone? Civilisation was only a scaffolding which was covered with paper posters so that we should not see that there was no building behind it, and it has collapsed at a single blow. It is a wreck, and wolves prowl over the abandoned ground. The town has slipped suddenly back to the times when nobody who started on an errand at night knew if he would ever see home again.