She put the receiver down. Among ourselves we always refer to the police as ‘mother-in-law.’ I wonder what has happened. What has Gömbös, the leader of the Awakening Hungarians, to tell me? (Knöpfler is his _nom de guerre_.) I saw in the paper yesterday that on the proposal of the Minister of War the Government had decided that his society should be dissolved. I never leave home without saying good-bye to my mother. “Come home early,” she said when I took leave. I was going to lunch with some relations. My mother knew this, and yet she seemed anxious. “I needn’t go if you don’t want me to. I can make some excuse.” “No, you just go along,” she said, and her expression changed suddenly. “You know, it does us old people good to be alone sometimes. Then we are with our own contemporaries who are no more. You go along to your own contemporaries who are still here.” She said this so sweetly that it made me feel as if a solitary Sunday dinner were a treat for her. She achieved her end, I went with a lighter heart. A cold wind blew down the street. My cousin and her husband came to meet me, and a short distance behind them Gömbös followed. “We’ll go a few steps with you,” they said, and Gömbös came to my side. “The cabinet council decided yesterday,” he whispered, “to intern us. Count Bethlen, Colonel Bartha, Bishop Count Mikes, Wekerle ... and you.” Again I had that feeling that it did not concern me, and I listened indifferently. “Károlyi is at Debrö and the warrant lies on his table waiting for his signature. Well, what do you think of it?” “Nothing,” I answered, and was surprised to find how little it affected me; “I am just thinking who will carry on in our place.” They went with me for a short distance and then we parted. I walked across the town, for I wanted to be alone and think: I had to make plans and arrange my affairs for all eventualities. A thousand questions crowded into my mind, and yet I found no time to take any decision, because I was thinking all the while of my mother, and of her only. When I told my hosts, over the coffee, the news I had just received, their faces seemed to reflect the danger that stood behind me. Evening was drawing in when I reached home. As I stepped into the ante-room the telephone bell rang, and when I answered it a friend spoke to me in the secretive way that has now become habitual. “The dressmaker has come with the new fashion papers. She is going straight to you, please don’t leave home until you have seen her.” A few minutes later her husband arrived. He had heard it at his club.... “You will probably be arrested to-night. What are your plans? Your friends, I understand, don’t want to escape.” “I shall stay too,” I said, and thanked him for his kindness. Meanwhile, my brother Géza had arrived, then a friend and his wife, and finally Gömbös.