In our home too we get a queer lot of visitors. Yesterday two soldiers wanted to come in. The maid, whom I have forbidden to open the door to anybody, asked them what they wanted. They enquired whether this was not an office, and whether we had the telephone laid on. The girl answered through the closed door that this was her ladyship Madame Tormay’s flat, not an office. “There are no more ladyships,” they shouted back. The girl went away and left them there, and for a long time they continued ringing and knocking the door. This morning when I went to say good morning to my mother I found a young Jew in uniform standing at the door of my room. We never discovered how he got in. “What do you want?” I asked. “I have come to requisition lodgings.” At this I lost all control over myself. “Enough of that,” I exclaimed. “Clear out!” He looked at me rather frightened, and began to stutter. “There is not a day that you don’t intrude here,” I went on. “This is our home, all that is left to us. Leave it alone!” He collected his papers quickly and went away. I had a presentiment afterwards that this young man would give us trouble for having been shown the door, so I went to my mother and told her what had happened. She laughed and replied, “I showed one the door the other day too.” That decided me to go to the Housing Office and to obtain, somehow or other, protection for our house. After a fight I managed to get on a tram. At this time the Housing Office under the direction of the Social Democrat Garbai had already taken up its quarters in the House of Parliament, where the Lords used to sit. The beautiful marble staircase of the House of Parliament was indescribably dirty. Its walls were besmeared with coloured pencil scrawls, and red inscriptions defiled the columns, such as “Long live the republic!” “Long live Social Democracy!” All their offices are like that. Public buildings sink with incredible rapidity into this dirty state. I have not been there myself but was told by people who have that the royal castle, the so called national palace, is as unswept and filthy as a railway station in the Balkans. In the small drawing-room of Maria Theresa cigarette ends and sausage skins litter the floor. The beautiful old stoves are nearly burst with the coal that is crammed into them, the walls around them are stained with smoke, the valuable old tables are covered with ink blotches, and at them our new administrators sit in their shirt sleeves.