The exchange cut off the connection while my friend was speaking to me. I did not hesitate long. I took my papers and recent correspondence and burnt everything which could have betrayed our purpose, my friends or myself. I often used to wonder why precious letters and documents of certain periods had disappeared. There are many letters of Szécsényi, Kossuth and Görgei which might well have been preserved for posterity. And while I was burning the letters addressed to me, one by one, and throwing their ashes into the stove so that no trace might be left in the open fireplace, I understood why the political correspondence of dangerous times had disappeared. There are many other details of Hungary’s stormy past which have become clear to me now. Among other things I understand why we have so few diaries and memoirs. For four hundred years our noblest spirits were watched by Austrian spies; and while in other countries innumerable hands recorded freely the lives of their great contemporaries, with us, at the best, only the great political declarations have been preserved. It was like this long ago, and now it is worse still, for worse and more impudent spies are about us now than the informers of the Austrian _regîme_. When I had just finished my sad task I heard the bell in the ante-room. Then I remembered these notes. I snatched them up from my writing-table and hid them between my books. But it was only my Transylvanian friend arriving. Her face, always sad of late, wore a new expression. She looked round my room: “Have they been here too?” she asked, and then began to laugh. It was the laughter of a mischievous child who has escaped detection. “They found nothing at my place.” she said laughing again. “They came early in the morning, with soldiers. I was still in bed, and they wanted to break in the door. I shouted that I was dressing and that a revolver was lying on my table, and meanwhile I threw into a portmanteau whatever I could think of—the list of names of the Széklers’ National Council, the members’ list of the National Association of Hungarian Women, and their pamphlets—and through an unguarded door the bag disappeared from my room. I didn’t mind the police coming in then; they searched everything—me too—but they didn’t find anything of importance.” In high spirits we went to the offices of the Association, where we found the secretary at her table, surrounded by a number of ladies. Practically everybody whose house had been searched that morning had come there and everybody had a different tale to tell. When they were searching Countess Batthyány’s library a list of names fell out of a volume, a list of the lady patronesses of a ball held some years ago. They pocketed it promptly: it contained the names they were hunting for. “How about the letter to Count Andrássy?” “Fortunately the messenger came for it last evening. I shouldn’t have liked them to lay their hands on that....”