Are the Czechs going to attack? But the great silence of expectation continues undisturbed under the frigid sky. * * * * * _April 27th._ The riverside churches were ringing their bells for Mass, and the town had turned its face in their direction. Our street was empty, except for the Red soldier on sentry duty at the corner. Mrs. Huszár went with me to the door, and when the Red sentry looked towards the town I slipped quietly out. His back was turned to me and I escaped his notice. I carried a tiny parcel under my arm, containing just a few things. How little suffices for our bare needs! Mrs. Pongrácz followed me, and we went quickly across the main street. I had not been in this direction since the evening when I arrived here, and my imagination had replaced the topography of the town on the banks of the Ipoly by quite a different place. It had placed an ancient town hall with a venerable tower on the market place, where none actually existed. It had placed around it old-fashioned houses with arcades where in reality were tiny shops crowded together and an old fountain in the middle of the square. I looked round, but reality left no impression on me and the picture of my imagination remained. Whenever people came towards us I experienced a feeling of terror; I raised my handkerchief and pretended to blow my nose. “If there are many more people coming,” I said, laughing even in my distress, “I’m likely to get a sore nose.” Red soldiers were standing at the railway crossing, and they asked us where we were going. “We are only going to Szügy, near by, to spend the day.” There came another few yards of street with suburban houses, and suddenly we found ourselves on the main road among endless open fields basking in the sunshine. There was a sharp wind blowing, but spring hovered over the woods of the neighbouring hills. The wayside flowers stood in the grass like long-waisted, wide-petticoated little peasant girls. It was like a feast-day, a Sunday of a hundred bright colours. Suddenly I felt an inexpressible desire for freedom. For weeks I had been hiding among friends, stealthily, making myself as small as possible, like one endeavouring to make his way through a thorny thicket. Now at last I had reached the open and the sun was shining on my face. I laughed with sheer joy, and the wind mimicked my mirth as it swept softly over the land.