On the main road a soldier on horseback came slowly into sight. He wore the gay hussar’s cap of olden times and his dolman swung on his shoulder with the paces of his horse. He looked as if he had stepped out of a picture-book of the past into a strange world of new soldiers with Soviet caps. A Hungarian hussar, a bugler! Remote from the present as his appearance was, the sound of his bugle seemed even more to belong to the past, and the cool evening resounded with the ancient call—a call composed by Haydn, a solemn call: ‘To prayer.’ The music spread and the forbidden call echoed through the village. In front of the gate the hands of the Red soldiers went instinctively to their caps. But they stopped halfway, for all prayer is forbidden. On the other side of the road the political delegate to this front, the little Jew Katz, was walking about in patent leather boots. Suddenly he recognised the tune of the bugle call, and his face became distorted with rage. He ran angrily towards the bugler. The soldiers looked down as though to avoid the Syrian eye of the Revolutionary Tribunal. [Illustration: GEORGE LUKÁCS _alias_ LÖVINGER. ASSISTANT COMMISSARY FOR FOOD. ] For some time after silence had been restored and the dust had settled down I stood there, waiting. Nowadays one is always waiting. How many things have failed to come! The ultimatum of the Entente, the French army from Marseilles, British relief troops, the opposition Government in Fiume, counter-revolutions, regiments of officers attacking from beyond the frontiers, relieving Szekler battalions.... And yet it was good to hope: it helped one to live. But these are things of the past. Now it is only the Rumanians who are coming, and Számuelly is having people hanged.... The night was long and restless. I put out the candle for economy’s sake and for hours lay motionless in the dark. Wherever my thoughts strayed they encountered filth and blood. Then suddenly, out there in the spring night, a nightingale began to sing. I groped my way through the dark room and opened the window. You little artist, the only artist who may practise his art freely in this sad country to-day! What was it I read in the newspaper this morning? “Order ... National Council for Intellectual Production.... The publication of intellectual products is exclusively in the hands of the National Council....” Art is the vehicle which conveys to us the eternal mystery of the universe. Art is faith wrought into the visible. Art is an aristocracy. Art has precursors, and woe to him who attempts to limit its expanse with shackles. He kills thought, he strikes the image of God as it were in the eye.