Since I have been in hiding goodness knows how many things I have been. First an escaped teacher, then a nurse, then a poor relation; now I am deaf. Yet under false names, under all sorts of disguises, almost invariably I have met with kindness. Of course some people naturally tried to impress me with their own importance, and I shall be for ever grateful to them, for they have taught me what it feels like to have to put up with other people’s conceit. There was a ‘comrade’ officer of the Reds who used to make me feel fearfully small—I was only a ‘poor relation.’ He scarcely ever took any notice of me, and when I said anything he looked ostentatiously bored. O poor relations, unwanted superfluities, you have been my teachers, once I was one of you, and when these times are over never shall I forget that I am of your kin. When the visitor left I sat before the fire and read Petöfi’s poems to my hostess. Slowly the day closed in and when the light failed we sat talking quietly in the dusk. “It was lucky that I did not let you go with the parson,” said Mrs. Beniczky; “God has preserved you.” The news had reached us in the afternoon. Although I had refused to go with him, the Reverend Sebastian Kovács had started off to see his parents, but while he was fording the river both the Czechs and the Reds had fired on him from the banks. He threw himself into the water—a woman who saw the whole thing recognised him and came to tell us. That was the last that was heard of him. “If you had been there, if they had arrested you, or.... Do you remember your dream the previous night?” I shuddered: once more I saw the white moonlit road and the little bloody bundle of my dream. Again I felt the groping hand around me. For two months it has reached out for me, missed me, come closer, missed me again. “There was no reason why you should go,” said Mrs. Beniczky, “this is a sequestered place, and you are as safe here as if your mother were watching over you.” Then, all of a sudden, I saw my mother again. She was not visible, yet I could see the poise of her head, her blue eyes, and the wonderful smile on that delicate, narrow face. Petöfi’s book was lying open on my knee: “Mother, our dreams do never lie....” And in the dark the smile was still present. * * * * * _May 22nd._