An icy wind was blowing when my mother and I came home through the unfriendly streets, and volleys were being fired in the direction of one of the barracks. We went out and came back amidst the clatter of firearms, and between the two journeys there was the picture of my sister’s home, the usual room, the dwarf pine tree, with spluttering, bad candles, and, on the table, covered with white linen, the children’s presents. They at least enjoyed it. The little boy thought that his brother’s patched up rocking horse was new, and that everything was lovely. Poor children of a poor age, it is as well that they don’t know what our Christmasses were like!... A hundred candles, a noble, grand fir tree reaching up to the ceiling. The smell of pure wax mingling with the perfume of the fir, fresh from the Vág valley, and every wish of the year was satisfied under that tree. Beyond that, I saw another tree, then another, and another, many more.... Burning candles and green fir trees carried me back into the years of the past: an avenue of shining Christmas trees, the end of which is so far away that in the depth of its perspective I can see myself quite small. There, far away, I was a child, like those who now count me among the old. Then all the old folk were still with me, the dear old ones who stand between us and death when we start life. There are many of them, many defending rows, so that we cannot see the end of the road.... As we advance, one after another they disappear. My two grandmothers, my father.... One defending row after the other has fallen out, and now only my mother and Uncle Géza, her brother, stand in front of me.... I am coming to the front myself; like the others before me, I am hiding the end of the road from the children who are growing up.... When childhood has passed, the festivities of Christmas are always damped by the quiet sadness of memories. And this year it is not only the past of individuals but the past of our country, our people that haunts us. How lovely Christmas used to be.... Hungary’s Christmas! So naturally lovely that we did not know.... Christmas bells! When they called to midnight mass their clanging mingled with the rattle of machine-guns. * * * * * _December 25th-30th._ In the good old times the last week of the year used to be one uninterrupted holiday. This year it is only a horrible part of the desperate road we have to tread. The news spreads from one to the other: to-morrow—the day after to-morrow—on New Year’s Eve at the latest—there is going to be great slaughter in the town. Everything one sees is cruel, rough and repellent. I have hidden from it these last few days, and, near my mother, in the peace of my home, once more I have had time to think.