“That is only the stage of transition.” “Transition which may mean annihilation.” Rain began to fall. It drifted in dense silver threads between the hills. The cottage, its inhabitant and its garden disappeared from my memory. I saw another picture. It was evening. My mother was sitting silently in the hall, lit up by the shaded lamp, and, as she was wont to do every year, she was winding the ivy wreath for my father’s grave. “It is better for him not to have lived to see this,” she said abruptly, quite unexpectedly. I looked at her. It was as if her words had opened a gap through which I could get a glimpse of her soul. I now knew that, though she never said so, she was worried by premonitions. Later on my brothers and sisters came. They brought news. “It is said that Archduke Joseph would be made Viceroy. The King has charged Count Hadik to form a Cabinet. Károlyi’s agitators are making speeches in the streets all over the town. There are great demonstrations. The printers’ compositors have gone over to the National Council. Now the compositors censor the papers themselves. Nothing is allowed to be printed without the approval of the secretariat of the Socialist party. The workmen of the arsenal have broken open the armouries. The police have joined Károlyi’s National Council.... Down there at the Piave everything has collapsed. There is mutiny in the fleet at Pola. In the plains of Venezia the front has gone to pieces.” And all the while, my silent mother was making her wreath.... I remembered nothing more. The hours passed unnoticed. Where was I next day? What did I hear? Memory was effaced. That day was the eve of the 31st of October.... Ah yes! In the afternoon we had a visitor. Countess Rafael Zichy came from the Castle Hill though the town had ceased to be safe. Yet she came and stayed late. The lamps on the roads had not been lit and we had to light her down the misty dark hill with a lantern. I was anxious to know if she reached home safely. My mother telephoned.... So much I remembered, but I have no recollection of what we talked about while she was here. * * * * * Dead tired, I closed my eyes. But the swift changing pictures passed in restless fantasy.... Human figures chasing outlines ... bloodmarks ... and the dead, white face of Stephen Tisza.... Shuddering, I opened my eyes. The night was over and day had come. And then I remembered that the Russians had not come after all. We had escaped that danger, but the rest was still there, encircling us and holding us in captivity. A slight noise attracted me. It came from the lamp hanging from the ceiling. A moth had got into the glass chimney and with tattered wings was struggling vainly to escape. CHAPTER IV _November 2nd._