It was now nearly ten o’clock. My mother called me: supper had been waiting on the table for a long while. The others had already supped, so I left them and joined my mother. I ate rapidly, and she watched me closely. “What is going on here? Why have they come? Is anything wrong? Don’t hide things from me.” I tried to reassure her, though I saw clearly she did not believe me. She sighed. “Well, go along to your friends, but don’t keep them too late.” Soon they rose to go with the exception of Gömbös. “It has been decided by the others,” he said, “that none of you will flee. They only send me.... I shall help from abroad.” We fixed up everything. Gömbös rose, took his society’s badge from his button-hole: an oak wreath on white ground with ‘For the honour of our country’ on it, and handed it to me. “Take this as a souvenir, nobody has a better right to wear it than you.” “God bless you; if we live I am sure we shall hear of you,” I said at the door. They left me and I heard the street door shut. I wondered whether anyone was lying in wait for him, down there in the dark, and listened for a time at the window, but the steps went undisturbed down the street. I went to my mother. I don’t remember ever having seen her so excited. “Now why don’t you tell me?” she cried. “I know that something has happened.” “Gömbös came to take leave; he is flying the country.” I changed the subject as soon as possible. We chatted a long time and by and by she calmed down. Or did she only pretend, for my sake? No, she never showed anything but what she felt. Slowly the clocks struck midnight. And here I am sitting at my writing-table and, instead of imagining destinies, am occupied by my own. Who knows whether I shall still be free to write to-morrow what I leave unwritten to-day? I packed the most necessary things into a small valise. Again the clocks struck: they are knocking at the gate of the morrow. * * * * * _February 24th._ The news of the internments has spread all over the town. I was afraid my mother might hear from someone else what was in store for me, so I decided to tell her myself. She is not one of those whom one has to prepare for bad news. When I told her, she went a little pale, and, for a time, held her head up more rigidly than usual. But her self-control never left her and she remained composed. She blamed nobody and did not reproach me for causing her this sorrow. “You did your duty, my dear; I never expected anything else from you.” More approval than this she had rarely expressed. I remained at home the whole afternoon, sitting with my mother, and we talked of times when things were so very different from what they are now. If the bell rang, if the door opened or steps approached, I felt my heart leap. In the afternoon a motor car stopped in front of the house. For a time it throbbed under our window.... Had it come for me?