In spite of myself my jaw began to tremble: I was afraid with a fear I had never known before, and notwithstanding the cold the sweat rolled down my face. But still I managed to keep myself erect and presently forced myself once more to smile. All sorts of possibilities coursed madly through my head. If I were arrested nobody would know of my fate, and the one-eyed monster into whose hands I was to be delivered could dispose of me without difficulty. My mother did not know that I was travelling, the Kállays whom I had left, the Huszárs to whom I was going, would each be ignorant that I was not safely with the other. One could invoke the Entente Mission on behalf of prisoners at Budapest, but if I were trapped now, nobody would seek me until too late.... The man was still sitting on the box. He rolled a cigarette, blew out the smoke and now and then looked up at me. I shall never forget his eyes. Some travellers got into the train at the next station and the corridor again became crowded. Two men who wore red buttons in their coat lapels waxed enthusiastic over the revolution: “That we should have lived to see it!” One could guess that they were speaking from fear. The man on the box nodded. How contemptible were these people who were Hungarians and had sold themselves to the foreigners; the whole thing was degrading and dirty; my pride revolted at it. To be arrested by this scum; miserably, without an attempt to escape; to wait for fate like one paralysed, unable to move! My passivity suddenly weighed on me like a great shame. I grasped my bag and forced my way through the crowd into the next compartment. There too the passengers stood jammed between the seats. Next to me was wedged a man whose face I remembered vaguely. He had a thin, fair moustache and wandering eyes, and kept making notes in a book, tearing out the pages and going on writing. However, I soon gave up watching him, for I noticed that the man in the short fur coat who was sitting in the corridor got up every now and then and looked into the compartment as if he were watching me. I waited for an opportune moment, and when he sat down on his box and was out of sight of me, I snatched up my bag and went further along the train. I had no plan, I only wanted to go on, get away, do something. It might succeed. I might escape at the next station. I might jump off the train.