The fading gold of ancient frames, the stale green of old furniture. The colours toyed with each other in silence and the red curtains and walls threw a russet light over things as if a magic sunset had been caught between the window and the door. Next to my room, in the small drawing-room, the old water-colours hung over the sofa. My ancestor, the powdered, pigtailed old gentleman, in his romantic breastplate of the Hardegger Cuirassiers, my grandfather’s handsome young head, and beautiful fair women with locks on the sides of their faces. Opposite, on the piano, between the golden Old Vienna vases, stood my mother’s portrait as a child, in all its delicacy. And on the mantelpiece the butterfly-shaped pendulum of the marble clock told me endless tales of the past. I loved all these things so much, or rather I became conscious of my love for them because fear was now added to my affection. Shall we keep them? Will they remain our own? In the evening I was on Red Cross duty at the railway station. The clock on St. Rocus’ chapel proclaimed it half past six. The trams, crammed full, raced down the street, with people hanging on outside like bunches of grapes. It was impossible to get into one. I had to walk, and as I came to the more remote parts of the town I remembered October 31st. The pavement was thronged with criminal-looking men, suspicious vagabonds, drunken sailors, Galician Jews in their gabardines. Whence did this rabble come? Or did it always live here among us, only we did not know it? The neighbourhood of the station was swarming with people. Disarmed, ragged soldiers sold cigarettes and sticky sweets; one or two asked for alms. Near the wall, on a stair covered with a waterproof, some obscene books were lying about. Dirty men sold pencils, purses, tobacco. A boy in a gabardine offered broken bits of chocolate from a tray. There was something Balkan in this noisy scene: a red cross flag floated over the murky street. People went freely in and out through the doors of the station. No tickets were required—anyhow, it would be impossible to stop the mob—the guards had gone. Russian soldiers in sheepskin caps, Roumanian and Serbian prisoners of war, like a stampeded herd, broke through the throng. These at least could go home. And my hand went to my heart. Wounded soldiers, drinking tea and eating slices of bread, sat on the benches in the carbolic-scented, stuffy air of the former Royal waiting-room, which was lit up sparsely. It was the first time I had been on duty since the Revolution. During the many years of war so many stretchers had gone through this Red Cross room, so much suffering and moaning and knocking of crutches, that it seemed to me now as if all these turned back with reproaches and asked continually: “What good was that sea of suffering, all these deaths, if this is to be the end of the road?”