The crowd approved and failed to notice that the Semitic race was only to be found at the two ends of the queue, and that not a single representative of it could be seen as a buyer among the crowding, the poor, and the starving.... This was symbolical, a condensed picture of Budapest. The sellers, the agitators, were Jews. The buyers and the misguided were the people of the capital. A carriage passed in the middle of the road. A pale, sickly woman sat in it. The waiting row of people growled angrily towards the carriage: Cannot this one walk like everybody else? Unpleasant words were spoken. I looked along the line. The agitators were there no more. But the seed they had sown grew suddenly ripe. The people talked excitedly to each other and shouted provocatively at those who wore a decent coat. “Why should he have that coat? All that will have to change!” Envy and hatred distorted the face of the street. A part of the press was already inciting openly to class-hatred. The town was now on the eve of its suicide, and presently, like a thunderbolt, there fell into the streets the news that the Bulgarian army had laid down its arms! I well remember that awful day. It was the twenty-sixth of September. Through the agitated, humming town I was going to the funeral of my little godson. The streets were thronged with people. As they went along they were all reading newspapers, and I noticed that they seemed to stagger as if they had been stunned by some terrific blow. Harassed faces rushed past me, and only here and there was some contrast perceptible. I did not understand it until later.... Two Jews were talking to each other: “At last! _Beneidenswertes Volk_, these Bulgarians. They will get good conditions! _Prima Bedingungen!_ And that is the beginning of peace.” They alone seemed to be happy.... And the sun glittered on the roof-tops and there was something in the glowing brightness of the early autumn which reminded me of the waking life of spring, when I had walked in the same neighbourhood. When was it? I remembered with a pang. On the morn of the victory of Gorlice did the sun shine thus, above the bright-coloured waving flags. And through my tears I saw suddenly the little dead golden-headed boy, the hope of his house: little Andrew Tormay.... He came during the war, he smiled, and he was gone. His short life ended with the last world-moving act. But was it the last? Or was it a new beginning? * * * * * A cold shudder ran down my back. Merciful God, is it not enough? Somewhere a cock crowed and roused me from my meditations. I took my hands from my face and rose stiff from beside my table. The room had become chilled during the long night. Between the slats of the blind something was painting with a delicate brush rapid, cold blue lines on the darkness. Dawn. I looked out for an instant into the damp, sad half-light and tried to picture the morn. But the thoughts of the night crowded upon me.