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this a small flight of steps would be concealed. The wall was unusual, and otherwise quite without function, but the people in the square would think it had been placed there merely to enclose the church.
    This little wall was quickly run up in a rather makeshift manner. Luckily there was no frost that night, and so by morning the cement had hardened and all was ready.
    I arrived home very late. That night I slept little, as I wanted to be in the church early so as to be able to supervise any last touches that might be necessary.
    It was just before four o’clock when I drove away from my house.
    There was no sign of life in the inky darkness that enveloped the city. The only sound was that of the fiacre horses’ hooves on the cobblestones. Here and there a lamp blinked in the darkness, solitary, forlorn … and yet how much brilliance and splendour, how much light would bathe the capital later in the day! I had dressed myself in traditional Hungarian gala dress, covered with a mass of gold braid. Looking out of the window of the hired cab my thoughts went straight to those thousands of my countrymen , my brothers, who were at that moment passing this winter’s night in the mud, snow, and freezing cold of the trenches on the front line.
    Notes
    1 . Of which Miklós Bánffy was Intendant.

Chapter Two
    It was still night when I entered the church by a little side door. To step from the darkness outside into the nave, which was now bathed in light gave me a feeling difficult to describe. It was rather like one of those marvellous moments recounted in legend when the tired hero, after battling his way through the horror of an obscure thorny wilderness, suddenly finds himself in the radiance of an enchanted castle.
    The night before, when I had seen it last while giving final orders for the construction of the little wall outside the entrance, there had only been a few shaded lamps where the craftsmen were still at work. Now the whole church was ablaze with light.
    In spite of the fact that I had discussed all the details – most of them several times – with my friend Professor Lechner and in spite, too, of having attended the rehearsal when the throne and their canopies and prie-dieux , the purple tent lined with white silk which hung over the altar, and the towering hangings of red velvet that draped the columns of the aisle, had all been in place, still, now, after another night of uninterrupted work had put the final touches of the great church’s gala dress and the huge crystal chandeliers above sparkled with light, even I was surprised, indeed overcome, by the sublime harmony of the effect we had created.
    On each side of the aisle, rising to the level of the windows above the side-chapels, rose banks of seats all covered with red velvet, and between the seats were narrow flights of steps all covered with the same red material. The double line of rising stands lent to the nave the aspect of a long open valley that was pervaded with a sense of expectancy as if it were waiting some long-awaited fulfilment. The church seemed to be stretching out itsarms to welcome the festive throng who would soon be crowding to their places headed by all the members of parliament and, finally, the king. If the eye followed the line of the flowing drapes of the columns, their rich velvet folds as regular and as immobile as the pipes of some great celestial organ, to the soaring arches of the gothic vaulting so high above the great chandeliers, then it would finally come to rest on iridescent circles of white flames floating in the air like the haloes around the heads of medieval saints and filling every ogival curve of the stonework with a powdery radiance.
    Somewhere high up on the banks of seats workmen were still hammering the velvet covering into place, while, behind the altar, seamstresses were stitching away hurriedly trying to finish the ceremonial cushions before the ceremonies began. The electricians , having just completed the