It was torture to lie still in bed. Why is there nobody among us who will avenge this? Why is there nobody who will wipe off the dirt before it dries on us? Innumerable eyes glared at me through the dark from under German soldiers’ caps, and at last I could bear it no longer. I lit a candle and tried to read. I took up a Hungarian book, for I felt that at that moment it would be impossible to read a book in any other tongue. When my mind was troubled how often had I not found solace in Arány, Vörösmarty and Petöfi? They wept over Austrian tyranny, over the failure of our war of liberation, but for all their sufferings those were pleasant times compared with the present. They knew how to console the passing sufferings of their age, and in that their age was fortunate—but we are forsaken. In our great city of a million there is not a single poet through whose verses we can express our sorrows, who can give voice to our sufferings. Anatole France poses as a socialist, and yet throughout the whole war he stood for the national ideals of France with the wholehearted fury of _revanche_. Gabriele d’Annunzio, proclaimed a traitor from the Capitol, led his nation off the right path, yet there was beauty in his wild war-cry because it was inflamed by the love of his country and his people. And while Anatole France and d’Annunzio sang in beautiful strains the glory and the victory of their nation, most of the poets of Budapest were in the cafés talking philosophy and pacifism, and more than one among them helped forward the rebellion at the Astoria Hotel. There were even some who proposed to the Council of Public Works that one public square should be called after Michael Károlyi, another in commemoration of the “battle” on the bridge, after the 31st of October, and the public park after a socialist newspaper! Were they misled? Maybe, but where are they now, when there can be no longer any misconception, when our land and our people are trodden down by the crowd they have joined? If Hungarian politicians have sunk into deplorable impotence, if there is not a single soldier to draw his sword, why do not the poets rouse the sleeping nation? I crouched at my writing-table and in my grief started to address a letter to them. About an hour may have passed when suddenly I heard the creaking of a door in our flat. Steps went through the drawing-room. One was quick, the other hesitating. The dear, quaint rhythm approached and I remembered. Thus did my mother come to me when I was a child, when I had bad dreams, and even before she had reached my side all that was terrifying would vanish. She opened the door. She could no more sleep than I could, so she sat down in the big arm-chair near my writing-table and remained there in silence. And I began to read to her what I had written.