The car had passed the garden gate, but the shock it had given us remained. Now I could think of one thing only; the slow passage of time and the wish that it would pass faster. If only I were gone from here and knew that the people who had befriended me were no longer incurring danger on my behalf! I made a miserable attempt to say something to that effect: “Thank you, and please forgive me.” Henriette Apor gave me her box of matches: there were only a few left in it, yet it was a precious gift, for there had been no matches in the house for a long time. I never thought a human being could be so alone in the world. Now everybody must be for himself only. I had premonitions of death, and thought of those I had seen, whose deaths I had witnessed. I began to understand their feelings at the approaching struggle in which none could render them aid. It had been of no use to hold their hands, to adjust their pillows, to sit up with them. And now there was nobody even to hold my hand, to sit up with me. The rain began to fall in scattered drops, as though a sad spirit had wept upon the window panes. On that fateful night of March it had rained thus when I left my home and the streets resounded with the shout: “Long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!” These had been the words that brought calamity upon us. Here with the rain the feeling of outlawry and isolation seized me, and I faced a dark vindictive world. I shut my eyes, wishing I could escape from myself. I may have slumbered restlessly, tossing about, for a few minutes; then I jumped up as if I had been shaken and began to dress with needless speed by the light of the candle. It was dark outside when the door of my room opened quietly. Elisabeth Kállay was standing there. She came to bid me farewell, and the action steadied me. We shook hands: “God bless you!” When the big gate of the castle opened before me, the piercing cold cut me like a knife, and I shrank back. Night stood in front of me like a damp black wall, through which I must pass. For an instant I felt as if someone were dogging my footsteps. The gate slammed with a bang behind me and made me feel as if all gates had closed on me and as if I were excluded from everything; a homeless, countryless, beggarly wanderer on earth. I penetrated deeper and deeper into the damp blackness, making my way through the garden towards the stables where the carriage was waiting for me.... The wheels splashed in the mud, rain poured, my shoulders and my skirt round my knees were soaked. Dawn was breaking when we reached the main road.