ith huge nails, acacia trees rustle in front of it. Its windows
are hidden by a high fence. On its roof from time to time something
flap-flaps like a black flag; it is a raven which has chosen the roof of
that house as a refuge. No other animal likes the hangman. The dogs bay
at him, the oxen run bellowing out of his way, only the ravens
acknowledge him as their host. They are his own birds.

It is late in the evening, the sun has long since set, it may be about
nine or ten o'clock, and yet the sky is unusually bright. Everywhere a
strange reflected glare torments the eye of man. Not a cloud is visible;
there is not a star in the heavens, yet a persistent, murky yellowness
embraces the whole sky like a shining mist, as if the night, instead of
putting on her usual cinder-grey garment, had clothed herself in
flame-coloured weeds. Any sounds that may be audible seem as if they
come from an immeasurable distance, and are hollow and awe-inspiring.

Close to the horizon the pointed steeples of Hetfalu are visible, their
black outlines stand out in sharp contrast against the burning sky.

The whole district is empty and deserted. At other times, in the summer
evenings, one would have seen tired yet boisterous groups of peasants
returning home from working in the fields and hastening back to their
respective villages. The voice of the vesper bell would everywhere have
been resounding, the sweetly-sad songs of the good-humoured peasant
girls would have soothed the ear, mingled with the jingle of the bells
of the homeing kine, and the joyous barking of the dogs bounding on in
front of their masters. Now everything is dumb. The fields for the most
part lie fallow and overgrown by weeds and thistles, never seen before.
In other places the green wheat crop, choked by tares, has already been
mown down. Means of communication have everywhere been interrupted by
the sanitary cordons. The high road is covered with broad patches of
grass on both sides. Men hold handkerchiefs to their mouths and noses,
and do not trust themselves to breathe. The tongues of the bells have
everywhere been removed. At the end of every village stands a good-sized
four-cornered piece of ground surrounded by a ditch, and within it, here
and there, graves have been dug well beforehand.

Throughout this lonely wilderness the furious barking of a watch-dog
suddenly resounds, to which all the dogs in the distant village
instantly begin to respond. Two men are fu