days of Szigetvár and the Field of Mohács. Soldiers, soldiers! always soldiers! So he had graduated at the Military Academy. Since then? Oh, mostly routine-life, routine work . . . a few professional journeyings in the provinces—no advancement and poor pay, in a country where an officer must live particularly like a gentleman; if too frequently only with the ⟨aid⟩ of confidential business-interviews with Jewish usurers. He sketched his happenings in the barracks or the ménage—and his own simple, social interests, when in Szent-Istvánhely. He did not live with his people, who were in too remote a quarter of the town for his duties. I could see that even if he were rather removed from daily contact with the family-affairs, the present home atmosphere was a depressing one, weighing much on his spirits. And no wonder! In the beginning of a brilliant career, the father had become blind and was now a pensioned officer, with a shattered, irritable mind as well as body, a burden to everyone about him. The mother had been a beauty and rich. Both
