How long will it last? Why can I not think of anything else? If I were at home now I would count my books to pass the time. One, two, three.... I imagined myself taking an old volume from the shelf. Kant’s _Critique of Pure Reason_. What good is that? At the other end of my bookcase there is another book in a parchment binding as smooth and cool as ivory: the Iliad. I thought of it—I had bought it in Siena, a long time ago. Bright, great heroes, Homeric songs, would mean nothing to me now. And Dante. No, I do not want him. His _Inferno_ knows nought of the tortures we endure. The horn of a solitary motor resounded through the night, and volleys were fired in the direction of the barracks. Quietly, so as to make no noise, I began to walk up and down in the nursery. There were books lying about among the toys; picture-books, coloured animals, big, funny alphabets. I looked at several; and thus a much used, shabby story book came into my hand. I sat back on the edge of the bed, the book open. It brought to me the memory of holidays, old Sundays, mild childish illnesses.... Someone is reassuring me, kisses me, hushes me and reads in a subdued voice at my bedside, strokes the hair from my forehead.... The pages turn quickly. And where neither Goethe nor Arany nor Dante nor Kant could succeed in carrying away my thoughts this revolutionary night, the eternal fairy-tale, that consoler of children, of sick and of suffering, triumphed. CHAPTER II _March 23rd._ One gets the impression that things have been like this for ever so long, though it all started only the day before yesterday. Good Friday was just two days ago. To-day is Sunday—but not Easter. The resurrection has failed and the grave-diggers sit grinning on the tomb. In some churches the bells were ringing, in others the people had gone to Mass, my brother’s message kept me at home. Again there was a newspaper lying on the table. In huge black letters Béla Kun’s proclamation to the proletariats of the world was glaring at me: “To Everybody!” It was revolutionary incendiarism, inciting hatred. In their old-fashioned way the church bells appealed above the roofs for love and good-will. Meanwhile the wireless had spread broadcast the news of Hungary’s shame and misfortune. And from Moscow there came the triumphant answer. It is published in _The People’s Voice_: