"Your friends and patrons. But fear not; I am not here to inveigh against them. They are kinder to you than I am. I would point you the way to ruin; they show you the road to safety. I offer you a joyless life of trials and afflictions; they hold out to you happiness and a brilliant career. I cannot compete with them. No, my son, you and they are right, and we are but foolish enthusiasts, sacrificing ourselves for a mere nothing, an idea, a dream. May you never be able to understand us! Go with those who are now preparing to ally themselves with the Russians against their own fatherland. As Hungarians, you and they are of course pained at the necessity of invoking your old enemy's aid against your own mother and brothers; but you do it because you are convinced that your mother and brothers must be humbled. The Baradlay escutcheon has received two shameful stains in the conduct of Ödön and Richard. It is reserved for you to wipe out those stains. What a brilliant refutation of all charges it will be in the world's eyes to point to the youngest son, who atoned for the crime of his two elder brothers by joining the party that summoned a mighty power to the pacification of his misguided country!" Jenő's face was white and he sat gazing into vacancy. They had not said anything to him about all this; and yet he might have perceived it clearly enough with a little reflection. "There can be but one issue," continued the mother: "we are lost, but you will be saved. Two mighty powers are more than we can withstand, be we ever so stanch and brave. Your brothers will fall sooner or later: death is easy to find. You will then be left as the head of the Baradlay family. You will be the envied husband of a beautiful wife, a man of high rank and wide influence, the pride of the new era on which we are entering." Jenő's head had sunk on his breast; his heart was no longer filled with pride and exultation. His mother proceeded. "The unfortunate and the helpless will come and kiss the ground under your feet. You will be in a position to do much good, and I am sure you will make the most of it; for you have a kind and tender heart. Among the petitions that will be laid before you, do not forget my own. You see I have come to you as the first suppliant." Alas, how humiliated the young man felt before his mother! And the more so that she spoke not in irony, but in the gentle tones of pleading earnest. "Not for myself do I ask anything," she went on; "our fate will soon overtake us, and if it lingered we should, I assure you, hasten to meet it. Your brother Richard is unmarried and so leaves no family; but Ödön has a wife and two children,--two dear, pretty children, the younger only a month old. You are sure to be richly rewarded for your great services. Your brothers' property will be confiscated and handed over to you." Jenő started up in horrified protest.