Detectives. I hid my notes in the sofa cushions and fled before them from room to room. They requisitioned uniforms and field-glasses. They also inspected the library and told us that the piano was public property. Even sewing machines are taken by the Government, and it makes no difference if the owner is a tailor. Thus are they killing home industries. They took all the tobacco they could find, nor did opera-glasses escape; “The army needs them. We give no receipt. These things no longer belong to you, nothing belongs to you.” And they took them. As they left they questioned the maid in the corridor: “And where may your master be?” I heard the girl reply mockingly, “In town!” “Don’t play the fool!” the detective shouted, “we know he has run away. We are searching the whole county for him.” Again the girl chaffed them. “What an idea! How can he have run away? They are pulling your leg. He comes home every night.” “Well I never,” said the man to his companion, and they whispered among themselves. The maid thought herself very clever and laughed contentedly. When they had left, Gregory the coachman came in. “They said they will come back and watch for him every night.” Mrs. Huszár advised me to go back to Szügy till this zeal blew over. In the afternoon the sky became clouded. The fusilade died down. The stuffy heat preceding a storm weighed heavily on us. In town they were burying some soldiers, unfortunate victims of the Red war. The passers-by stopped on the kerb and stared at the funeral, while the procession passed slowly under red flags. A red cross was borne in front of it, then came the coffins, draped in red, followed by two vulgar-looking girls, in red dresses, carrying wreaths of red flowers tied with red ribbons. Under the grey sky, on the grey road, death, dressed in red, proceeded towards the cemetery. And among the green fields, in verdant peace, the garden of Szügy was waiting for me. CHAPTER IX Szügy, _May 11th_. Since I left Szügy the almond trees have blossomed; so beauty came to meet me, and my heart lost some of its wildness and I felt less lonely and sad. When I reached the bottom of the neglected garden I saw that someone was sitting on the stone seat leaning his elbows on the table and staring towards the sun. For an instant I was taken aback: who was this man? Then I remembered: he must be one of the officers quartered on us. Abject distress was depicted on his downcast face. It was despair that drove many patriotic officers through hunger and poverty into the Red army, and among the humiliated they are the worst; trampled, threatened, insulted, hungry, shivering and watched; the helpless prey of a typewriter-agent commander-in-chief, of the delegates to the front, of scum.