CHAPTER XV.

August 2nd.

The shepherd's flute sounded slowly through the breaking morning. I felt disappointed ; my elation had passed ; my mind was still racked with anxiety. Everything seemed the same in the streets : the red flag was still floating over the county hall, the Red soldiers were leaning out of the guard-room window just as they had done during the victories of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat over the Czechs. A schoolmaster who lived near by was walking in his shabby Sunday coat towards the teachers' Communist school. What has happened ? The gates of the prison are open : are the captives afraid to leave it ?

A little boy took his red, white and green toy flag from above his bed and waved it out of the window. A man in the street shouted at him threateningly.

About noon the wife of a neighbour came, bearing alarming news : they want to arrest Aladár Huszár. He went to the teachers' Communist school and distributed ribbons with the national colours and made a speech to the teachers. When Comrade Weiss, the examining Commissary, arrived, the National Anthem was filling the place. In his fury Comrade Weiss tore up all the teachers' certificates. The Jewish teachers stood by him, while the Hungarians left the place with Huszár, singing the National Anthem. Outside Red guards met them and tore the national colours off all of them.

So when Aladár Huszár came home we hoisted a huge red, white and green flag on the house.

The drum ! What has the Town Crier to say now ?...

" It is forbidden to wear or exhibit any emblems... " Presently two hooligans invaded us and tore down our flag, but we don't care. The whole village is in a ferment. Patrol followed patrol. A man feverishly pasted pink posters on the walls, displaying the telegram of the Secretariat of the Socialist-Communist Party.

" As the result of an agreement with the Entente, a

WORKMEN'S GOVERNMENT

formed by the trade unions has assumed power. The officials of the existing workmen's organisations will continue to act without interference... The strictest martial law is to be proclaimed. "

Green posters were then stuck up beside the pink ones all along the street, containing the text of the new Crovernment's telegram. They called themselves a Workmen's Government instead of a Revolutionary Cabinet, Ministers instead of Commissaries. President : Peidl ; Interior : Peyer ; Justice : Garami-Grünfeld ; then followed three of Béla Kún's Commissaries : Agoston-Augenstein for Foreign Affairs, Haubrich for War and Dovcsák for Commerce ; at the end of the list the former President of the Soviet, Garbai. Minister for Education.

I remembered the conversation I had overheard yesterday : " Let us lead it into other channels... " Moritz Kolm has arranged his fraudulent bankruptcy and suddenly Mrs. Moritz Kohn's name appears above the shop. But what is the National Army doing ?

The Dictatorship of the Soviet collapsed with the Red army ; its position became hopeless on the 31st of July when it became known that the Rumanians would not stop a second time at the Tisza. Béla Kún had hurriedly convoked the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Five Hundred yesterday afternoon. And in the great hall of the new town hall, where on the 21st of March a handful of men had proclaimed the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Béla Kún resigned in a halting, tearful voice. During the night he fled with the other Commissaries and their families to Austria, finding protection under the wings of their co-religionist Chancellor Renner. With the help of the Peidl Government they made their way to the frontier, protected by an escort supplied by the Italian military mission in Budapest ! It is said that Számuelly has disappeared. But among those who fled with Béla Kún was the blood-thirsty Weiss and so were Schwarz, Vágo and Pogány, and the twenty-stone lawyer, Comrade Landler, the Red Commander-in-Chief. They absconded from their army between the Danube and the Tisza, after having driven it into death and destruction, though they had sworn to stand by it to the last drop of blood.

Without wounds received on the fields of Bolshevik glory, but with many millions of Austro-Hungarian bank-notes, they disappeared into the obscurity from which they had emerged to Hungary's misfortune a few months before. They have gone, as Michael Károlyi did before them. So the country hoisted its tricolour flag once more. But the Government of Peidl, which not only tolerated but abetted and organised the flight of the criminals, would not tolerate such a resurrection ; so it forbade the flag and proclaimed martial law.

Aladár Huszár has been arrested in the street and is in prison. The commander of the Red garrison wants to have him executed for the National Anthem incident, and for wearing ribbons of the national colours, but the chief of the police telephoned to Budapest, asking that he be reprieved. The answer came : " Keep him in custody and let the Terrorists take him to Budapest. " The Terrorists openly declare that they are going to settle with him on the way. Mrs. Huszár wanted to see her husband, but the Terrorists would not let her. " Comrade Szijjgyártó is interrogating him now. " The news spread like wildfire. Machine-guns were mounted in front of the county hall.

Then the whole town began to simmer and even the inhabitants of the red-postered houses came forth—officials, teachers, the whole educated class, the people of no importance coming to protect the unimportant folk's friend. The railway men, the postmen, all of them, clamoured that Huszár should be set free. And suddenly the Red garrison went over to their side.

The drum again :

" Anybody found in the streets after 9 p.m. will be arrested by the Red patrols. " But just then the Red guards sent a message to Comrade Szíjgyártó that if the prisoner was not released by nine they would lay down their arms and refuse to serve any longer.

People were talking excitedly in the streets, saying that the Rumanians were already in Aszód and were coming in our direction. Comrade Szíjgyártó shook his fist with rage : " I ought to have had him hanged at once. " The crowd became more and more threatening and at nine o'clock Aladár Huszár was at home. He was quite calm. Comrade Szíjgyártó had ran at him with raised fists, had pointed a revolver at him, and threatened to shoot him...

Suddenly we heard sobs from the end of the table. It was only then that we noticed the children. With wide open eyes, deadly pale, they were standing there and they had heard everything. When we were as small as they my mother would not allow anyone to tell us gruesome stories ; but in spite of their parents the children of this age live through things which we were not even allowed to be told in fairy tales.

........

August 3rd.

The town is in the hands of the Terrorists and no news comes from Budapest. The last message came this morning. The delegates of the Entente are negotiating with the new Government and are inclined to recognise it. The Rumanian advance has ceased.

In the streets of Balassagyarmat the Communists, who were trembling yesterday, are again assuming a provocative attitude ; the comrades who were ill recovered suddenly. The propaganda shop has been opened again and the window is full of Communist Declarations. More than two people are not allowed to meet in the street.

The Terrorists wanted to arrest Aladár Huszár again, but he had fled. The door-bell is ringing all day detectives and red guards inquiring for him. And in the village the inhabitants and the railwaymen are arming secretly.

........

August 4th.

A shot was fired close to the house and this was followed by a regular fusillade. People came running out of the houses and for some minutes there was confusion. The wife of Gregory, the coachman, tumbled in breathlessly : " What goings-on ! the soldiers have barred our street. They are driving the people into the houses at the point of the bayonet. "

I thought at once of Aladár Huszár and hoped they had not arrested him. His wife received many messages not to show herself in the street and naturally we wanted to know what had happened ; so by the irony of fate, it was I who crept out of the house.

The people I met spoke excitedly ; everybody was coming from the direction of the county hall and nobody was going that way. A man said : " Turn back, you cannot go there. A new detachment of Terrorists has arrived and there is a corpse in the street. "

So the trouble was not about Huszár. I thanked him for the warning, but went on. Another running crowd was coming towards me. A servant girl leant against the wall and began to tie her boot laces.

" What's happening there ? "

The girl answered, panting : " They have red caps, goodness only knows what they are, perhaps French, but they are firing furiously. "

The shooting had stopped now. Two schoolboys were peeping out from behind a door : " The Jews have taken up arms, " they said mysteriously. The street leading to the station was absolutely empty and nothing was audible but my steps. Men in leather coats were standing in groups in front of the county hall and round the machine-guns bayonets were glittering in the sun. I looked round rather alarmed, this was the first time I had seen the place and I had pictured it differently. There was no tower on the town hall and not a trace of my imaginary arcades or old pump. It was a pity, but the disillusionment of a dream is always so.

As if I had suddenly been perceived the bayonets turned towards me and the men in the leather coats shouted furiously : " Back ! " Someone looked out of a ground-floor window. The soldiers promptly stuck their bayonets into it. " Bloody bourgeois, in with your head, or I'll knock it off ! " I saw that the Terrorists were coming in my direction, so I thought it was time to turn back.

In the afternoon a detective called. He was one of those whom we call ' radishes, ' Red outside and White within. He inquired after Aladár Huszár and told his wife that the red-caps who had been mistaken for Frenchmen were hussars back from the Tisza front and that the firing was caused by an attempt of the town guards to disarm Comrade Szíjgyártó. He was saved by the Terrorists, who were now masters of the town. Then he looked carefully round : " The Lenin Boys have decided to hold out to the last. They want to revenge the fall of the Dictatorship and intend to plunder to-night. There are a hundred of them. They are out to kill and have marked this house. Be careful ! " He looked round again. " And please don't forget to tell Mr. Huszár when he gets back into office that I am not a Communist. "

Hours passed. The news passed like a shudder through the streets. Many locked their front doors. I buried my papers again and we also hid the money that was in the house. We all packed up our most necessary things. As evening fell, we could bear our isolation no longer. I must try... I will go towards the station ; perhaps I shall hear something by chance. But the streets echoed with emptiness and the station was deserted. Only a workman was sitting on the weighing machine filling his pipe.

" When is the next train for Budapest ? "

" There won't be any train, " the man answered and lit his pipe. Then he closed his eyes.

I went homewards. New posters were showing on the walls :—

" Strict martial law... All gatherings are prohibited and those who do not obey the injunctions of the Red guards will be shot on the spot... Szíjgyártó. County Commander. " Near a paling a short elderly Jew was standing and talking to a woman. Quite coolly, obviously so that I should hear it, he said : " At half -past five the Rumanians entered Budapest. " I stumbled, though my foot had not hit an obstacle, and the blood rushed to my face. The Rumanians ! I could hardly grasp it. The Rumanians ! That is the reason, then, why our people could not come ! That is the reason why the Entente stopped them ! That is why so many of us had to die during the long months of waiting ! The occupation of Budapest was reserved by the Great Powers for the Rumanians so that the city might become their prey and they might still act the role of deliverers.

I felt giddy as I walked home. The blow and the humiliation were so great that everything else became indifferent.

Budapest is in the hands of the Rumanians !

The clock struck nine ; suddenly I heard a violent knocking and furious cursing at the end of the corridor, and a fat, angry man rolled into the room. He had forgotten to take his hat off, and his pipe was in his mouth. It was old Schlegel, a stout old German market gardener from the banks of the Ipoly, a fiery Hungarian patriot, who within the last few months had helped innumerable refugees across the river.

" Donnerwetter ! The devil, why don't you open your door ? I knock the curfew they shoot people down out there. "

Now that he was in safety, he calmed down and put his fat hand on Mrs. Huszár's shoulder : " I just came to tell you you need not be anxious. Your husband is in my house. We have plenty of arms. If the Communists try their slaughtering trick here, I'll come too and shoot them like dogs. " He produced from his pocket a huge rusty revolver and waved it like a mace threateningly above his head. " That is all I had to say. "

I stole to the front door to see if all was clear. The new moon had already set and there was not a soul in the street. I made a sign to the old man and in his gouty way, his right leg always foremost, he passed me into the street. Without a word he touched his hat and with shaky, baby-like steps disappeared at the end of the street between the high stalks of the Indian corn. The electric light went out. The town moved no longer.

Our vigil was illuminated by a single candle, and we kept looking at the clock. It was said that the Terrorists were guarding the streets leading out of town so that nobody should be able to escape. Looting was to begin at midnight. Even if they did their work quickly it would take them half an hour before they came here. This house was said to be marked as their third point of attack.

Somehow I remembered a horror of my childhood. I was quite small. My grandmother Tormay was telling us stories about her Huguenot ancestors. She told us how, before the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the men of Catherine de Medici had locked all the gates of Paris so that none should be able to escape and then marked with chalk the houses inhabited by Huguenots. " But that happened more than three hundred years ago, " my grandmother said, " when people were still wild and cruel. " The clock struck midnight.

I asked Mrs. Huszár to escape at once with her children into the fields of Indian corn as soon as the shooting started.

We listened. Nothing... only the clock struck again. Half-past twelve. My friend was standing near the window listening, and I thought how often we had sat up through the nights like this during the last few months.

" Do you remember ? That night when we kept saying, ' Now the Czechs have fired ! ' ' Now the Reds ! '" ?

Our fate has not altered. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is still alive and continues to torture us.

One o'clock ! A hen fluttered up the roof of the house opposite. Under the stars silence pervaded the summer night.

Half-past one !

A dog barked, and all round other dogs responded.

" They are coming ! "

The anxious moments passed. The dogs were silent again and in the cool dawn the first cock crowed, followed at intervals by others. It reminded us of clocks striking the hour in succession.

The sun rose. The Terrorists have not come. Who can say why ? The St. Bartholomew's night of Balassagyarmat has not come off.

........

August 5th.

This morning we learnt that before starting on their plundering expedition the Terrorists found a supply of champagne in the cellars of one of the hotels. They got so drunk that they could not even stand. So a few hundred bottles of champagne saved the town. Comrade Szíjgyártó was the only man who remained sober. It appears that he received an ambiguous message from the Budapest Workmen's Government and in the course of the night he sent his detectives out to find whither he could escape. When his men returned they reported that the roads to the villages were guarded by armed men, so he was obliged to wait till the Lenin Boys had slept off their drunkenness. But meanwhile the old police of Balassagyarmat had assembled. Now people are talking of the Terrorists' intention to escape by train, but the police will disarm them at the station.

Everybody was out of doors. Here and there a young man in a leather coat, with a brand new hat on his head, appeared, looking innocently at the crows.

Mrs. Huszár noticed it too and we looked at each other. They have changed their garb... "

Suddenly policemen, railwaymen, guards with white flowers, officials, women and boys began rushing towards the station. The whole street was running and its rush was watched from both sides by the posted horrors of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The Red soldiers, wild sailors, half-naked workmen wading in blood, shapeless female monsters. Yesterday they were all alive ; now, as I passed them quickly they receded on the walls beside me as the phantoms of a terrible past.

A youth came running from the direction of the county hall shouting at the top of his voice.

" The Lenin Boys have escaped ! " While people were waiting for them at the station they fled with their booty from the other end of the town. People swore and angry voices shouted : " Scoundrels ! But they will be caught ! "

In that moment, as if a chain round the town's chest had broken, Balassagyarmat breathed freely again. Men raised their heads, spoke loud and freely, many careworn faces made an attempt to smile. There was talk and laughter under the trees lining the streets. Then a boy started to work and others took it up—arms were raised, sticks and pocket-knives worked feverishly, and in a few minutes, all through the town, the posters of the Dictatorship were hanging in shreds from the walls. Thick layers of paper fell on the pavement, bright coloured scraps covered the cobbles, and were trodden in the dust.

The grape harvest has come in the land of hunchbacks.

........

August 6th.

Days have passed since the murderers of the country have fallen and fate has not yet done justice to them. Reality has achieved nothing, so it remains for imagination to sit in trial over the criminals.

People tell each other that Michael Károlyi and Béla Kún have been given up by the Czechs and Austrians and that both have been hanged. Between the Danube and the Tisza and in Western Hungary the peasants are arresting the hiding butchers of the Dictatorship and delivering them up to the justice of the crowd, who make them eat the posters scratched from the walls. Then they are executed by those whose father, mother, husband or child they have murdered.

Then comes one authentic piece of news : Tibor Számuelly has committed suicide. He was the first who tried to escape. The Cabinet had not yet resigned when he rushed in his car to the aerodrome, hoping to fly to Russia. But not one of the pilots would undertake the job. Then he started with some of his hangmen on a lorry towards Austria but was arrested on the way, and while unwatched shot himself dead.

" That is not fair," said a farmer, " he ought to have been strung up on a dung-heap."

" He deserved the torture chamber, not a bullet ! " And the people curse the scoundrel furiously for having escaped human justice.

But once again our elation is stifled by sorrow, for we are receiving more and more unexpected names of the victims of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In the last hours, during its agony, the reign of terror has snatched the lives of Oscar Fery and his faithful companions, Menkina and Borhy.

Oscar Fery, the organiser of the Hungarian county police, was the heroic soul of the Counter-revolution. He was a brave soldier, who, notwithstanding that he was a Lieutenant-General, stayed in Budapest during the Commune so that in case of need he might be on the spot to lead his police. The Dictators were afraid of him—he did not run away ! A few days ago, he was dragged from his home at night and with two faithful officers was taken to the Terrorists' barracks. When the fall of the Dictatorship was unavoidable, the prisoners were killed in the cellars one after the other. Oscar Fery was the last, and as he was being taken to the cellar he fell over the mutilated bodies of his companions. There was an awful storm that night, the roaring of the wind dominated every sound. Yet for hours one could hear the screams of the victims in the cellar of the barracks.

The murderers have escaped, but their saviours continue to rule over Hungary while the Entente negotiates with them. And the Rumanians are in Budapest.

" One can't go on living like this. We would much rather be killed. " I have seen weeping men to-day.

........

August 7th.

There are no trains yet from Budapest and the town is surrounded by a ring. Nobody can get out of it ; no passengers, no newspapers come to us. The Workmen's Government has cancelled all the orders of the Dictatorship, and no fresh orders have come through yet. Only a part of the troops from the Tisza front could be disarmed. The soldiers have over-run the country and many are robbing and plundering.

A doubtful rumour spread yesterday evening. It was said that an opposition Government had been formed in the capital. Is it true ? Or, as so often before, is it only an invention arising from our hope ? Yet hope is rising. " You sit down and write an article in remembrance of Balassagyarmat, " said Aladár Huszár. " The old patriotic newspaper has reappeared. "

For months I have been writing only for my own self and the idea of publicity came disturbingly to me, as if someone were watching my pen over my shoulder. " Resurrection... " I chose that title for my article and I signed my name the first time since the events of March.

As I wrote it many thoughts passed through my mind. The name of Elisabeth Földváry, my companion and protector during the sad days, has fallen off me as a cloak. I return it to those who have a right to it and I hope they will forgive me for using it. I give it back but not with a light heart. The cloak, worn for so many months, has practically grown on me, and refuses to part from me. I must seek a road that leads me back to my own self. And while seeking it, two individualities collided within me : my own, which has to fight and work, and the other, the poor, tired, shy, retiring one, which has realised the pleasures of obscurity and the peace of quiet irresponsibility. Suddenly I feel frightened. Will that which life has left me be enough for what life expects from me ?

The door flew open as if torn by a hurricane :

" Come, come, all of you ! " shouted Aladár Huszár, holding a paper in his hand. " Great news. A proclamation... "

" Why ? What ? Whence ? "

He read, deeply moved :

" To the Hungarian people ! Inspired by the everlasting love with which I cling to the Hungarian people, looking back on the sufferings we have gone through together in the last five years, I give way to the request addressed to me from all quarters and will attempt to solve the present impossible situation ! "

We no longer asked any questions, we knew who it was who for five years had suffered in common with us, he who loves the Hungarian people with everlasting devotion, the people forsaken by everybody, whom nobody loves. The Archduke Joseph !

After all the hatred—everlasting love ! A tear ran down my cheek ; I did not wipe it away but left it there to wash off the traces of so many sufferings.

A Government has been formed and its members are Hungarians, not foreigners. Stephen Friedrich is Prime Minister.

There was a time when Friedrich had been misled by Michael Károlyi. He took his part in the October Revolution though in the course of the winter he had opened negotiations with the Counter-revolution. He too is responsible for those events, but he is the only one who has shown contrition and has redeemed his fault. After the closing of the darkest and most humiliating pages of Hungary's history he has written his name on the first clean page.

The sun was shining and on the roof of the county hall the red, white and green flag was being hoisted. The eyes of a whole town filled with tears.

On October 31st the hands of traitors drew the flag into the Revolution as a snare. Then, in tragical disgrace, it was made to float over the country which its enemies occupied and tore to pieces. The sight of it became a torture, my soul revolted against it, and I turned away from it that I might not see it ; it became unclean and was besmirched. And when everything that it stood for had been crushed and dissipated, they tore it down with derision. From that moment it became ours again : it was persecuted like ourselves. It was sentenced to death, stood before the Revolutionary Tribunals ; prison and the gallows were in store for those who harboured it. The flag became a martyr. Because innocent Hungarian blood has been shed for it, because it has been consecrated with blood, and blood has brought it back to us and raised it above us God have mercy on him who dares to touch it ! Its tricoloured folds are now unfurled under the sky. And beneath it, on the walls of Balassagyarmat, there stand the letters of the Palatine's message : " ... with ever-lasting love... "

Peasants, gentlemen, workmen, and Red soldiers of yesterday gathered in front of the proclamation and read it, deeply moved. I stood there too. The sun had set and yet it seemed that some mysterious afterglow lit up the faces...

........

August 8th.

The day has come. The terrible spell is broken. Hungary again takes her fate in her own hands. And to-day I am to see my mother again.

Life returns to the groove whence it was torn some months ago. Through the breach in the walls which have encircled us the horizon is widening, the first train to the capital is starting. And I take leave of the house which has given me a home, I take leave of the people, the children, of my little corner near the window and of the shady palings of the back garden, of everything that has been kind to me in my misfortune, of all the unforgettable things...

Through the windows of the train the station buildings were already receding. Then the last little houses disappeared, the waters of the Ipoly, the poplars on its banks, the glittering heights of the distant Fatra. Then everything became small and distant. The green trees gathered close together, the roofs sank in the distance, and the flag above the county hall seemed to rise higher and higher. Its staff had become invisible, only its folds were floating like a huge, tricoloured bird which had stopped in its flight above the town. And winding like a thread of silver between its swampy meadows the Ipoly kept me company for a time. Then parched fields came towards me, a sad, dry country. In the fields of Indian corn the empty, straggling stalks rustled in the wind raised by the train. And this rattling noise is heard everywhere in Hungary to-day, for everything has been burnt.

Somebody in our compartment whispered : " It was for to-day that Számuelly had fixed the massacre of the bourgeoisie... It was to have begun in Budapest. Then all over the country... Lenin and Trotsky had ordered a stricter Dictatorship. "

' Lenin speaking ! ' The awful words dissolved like rotten things in the air. He speaks no longer here ! Nor does Számuelly ; but there are voices from gallows-pits, from the graves and from the unburied dead.

The track curved, and from the direction of the old castle of Nográd we could see a storm racing towards us. In a few moments the sky was black. The train threw itself against the hurricane, then was compelled to stop. The heavy carriages trembled ; the trees slanted and the dust rose in dark clouds. The wind moaned like a monster organ. Such a wind preceded the world-war. To prevent premonitions I said quickly : " If we stick to each other and do not forget... In one year, in two, or ten or even a hundred years, Hungary will arise again, for there is a little speck of earth which belongs to us. Six foot of ground at the foot of Golgotha was enough to bring the Resurrection... "

The storm passed to the west and the spires and cupolas of chastened Budapest appeared again in sunshine above the plain and the hills.

I took leave of my companions at the station and then a carriage carried me off. I was alone. Flags were floating above me on all the houses—curious flags, that had been cut in half when the terror was requisitioning them ; for an auto-da-fé. On the walls the orders of Rumanian generals were posted—on white paper. Like ambulant ruins, the electric trams with smashed windows crawled along their rails. They were still closed and between the blinds shops one could see that the windows were empty. The dusty glass showed traces of removed posters. After the robberies of Communism, life had not yet returned to the town.

With steel helmets and fixed bayonets a Rumanian patrol came round a corner. The blood rushed to my face, and then I noticed something else : in ramshackle cabs Rumanian officers with painted cheeks and rouged lips were sitting with young Jewesses. How quickly they have made friends ! And how happy they seem !

A motor lorry was standing in front of a house from which Rumanian soldiers were removing typewriters. War contribution everything is war contribution. With mighty swings they threw the delicate machines one on top of the other. A thud, a crash that was the end of them ! Rumania is acquiring the tools of Western culture. But instead of broken typewriters it might have acquired capital in the shape of hundreds of years of Hungarian gratitude, if it had been content to leave the little that was left to a ransacked people.

Over the bridge flags were playing in the breeze. Suddenly I saw them no more. There, above the hill, sadly, stood the royal castle. Opposite, on the shore of Pest, the House of Parliament was standing with its darkened stones. The building seemed quite young a year ago. How suddenly it has aged, how tragic have become its bloodstained cellars, its bullet-marked walls, the square where the rabble watched the executions, the stairs leading to the river !

On the side of Buda the flags were floating too, on the bridgehead, on the houses. Towards the end of the town the palings showed now and then the traces of torn-off red posters.

Then I came in sight of our hills. But since I had last been here the forest has disappeared. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat has exterminated that too.

Now I was going up the hill ; nobody was waiting for me, nobody knew I was coming. All the way along I was smiling to myself.

The high, double roof of our house showed up bright against the blue sky. The gate was open, the pebbles crunched under my feet, I opened the front door.

A white wall, an oaken staircase, flowers on my mother's table. And I stood there, irresolute. Steps were approaching, peculiar steps, as if one foot were slightly dragged behind the other. Blessed steps, beloved steps, I ran to meet them ! My mother stood in the door.

I felt that I turned pale. Already the flame was dying within her and she was preparing for the long journey. But I will keep her back, she must stay with me. She opened her arms and I felt her, who had always been taller than I, so small, so elusive, against my heart. I will keep her back, will make her stay.

And in her arms my outlawry died. I was home again.

THE END.