Noon came, then afternoon, again the enchanting hour of sunset on the banks of the Ipoly. The sun stands on the hills above the bank and pulls at the golden net which he cast over the valley in the morning. Like a fisherman he pulls the light, glittering net over the fields and crops. The net glides on, fast, without a sound. Now and then its gold is arrested for an instant by a shrub, by the verdure of a poplar, by the aspen of the river banks. Then the net glides on, and the trees, the crops, the water, the meadows, grow dark. The net has reached the horizon. For an instant, like a golden line, it lingers on the blue crest of the hills, then suddenly it dips into the west on the other side and is gone. I love this light: it has touched the steeples of our churches, the thresholds of our cottages, from one end to the other of our country. For a thousand years it has come to us with dawn, over Transylvania, over the Carpathians, the Great Plain, over the waters of the Tisza and the Danube, over the fields of Banat, over the Carso, over the blue, salt bay of Fiume, over all our ancient, humiliated counties, over Buda and Pest, over Pressburg and Trencsén. All that has been torn asunder is united again in its net. But the catch of the great fisher is scanty now: he carries naught but another Hungarian day, a day of anguish, of blood, and of tears. Only occasional rifle shots sounded round the house now; the town was going to rest. The electric light went out early to-night, so Mrs. Huszár and I sat facing each other by candle-light. Shells screeched through the air above the roof. What is happening to our country? For days we have had no newspapers. Tribunals of Terror sit at night. Racing motors spread death and Béla Kun speaks of plans for tens of years. The clock on the wall has stopped; goodness knows how long we have been sitting like this. Better to do something than sit and think, so I fetched my patience cards. Tiny cards, the coloured toys of an old world. Crowned kings, ermine cloaked, powdered little queens, haughty young knights, they all look as if in their vanity they were leaning over a mirror to see their reflection. When I left home my mother packed these cards in my bag, and they have become my only luxury. Whenever I look at them they tell me something gently, in whispers, of my home. Soothers of worries, prophets, fortune-tellers! We laid the cards slowly out on the table, collected them, started anew. How thin my hands have grown.... Over the roof, high up, another shell whines. Then a splintering crash. Now the other side answers.... “The Reds....” “That one came from the Czechs.” Silence. “There’s another Red.” We spoke mechanically, for by now we had got to know the voices of the guns. Meanwhile the little queens and kings on the table came and went by the light of the candle. “The Czechs....”