ive to sympathy in general and to the
utterances of our people in particular. And for that reason too I love
the people here, very simply and childishly perhaps, because they show
that they love me: enthusiasm everywhere, genuine, unaffected enthusiasm
wherever we go; and yet what are we able to do for them, except give
them money! I find this sympathy among the lowest: workmen and labourers
whom I had never seen before to my knowledge and to whom I could only
speak three or four words of comfort--and I can never find much else to
say, it is always the same--and among the soldiers, although they must
feel instinctively, in spite of never seeing me except in uniform, that
I am no soldier at heart; and also among the students, the priests, the
civic authorities and the higher functionaries. Yesterday we went round
everywhere, to all the places appointed as refuges: not only the
barracks and shops and factories, but even some of the rooms at the
law-courts, two of the theatres and the prison, poor souls! And also St.
Ladislas. From the Round Tower we had a view of the surrounding country:
towards the east there was nothing but water and water, like a sea. My
heart felt as though screwed tight into my breast.

"We went to the university also. I remembered most of the professors
from two years ago, when I was here as an undergraduate.

"It was a terrible scene outside the town. Oh, Mamma, there were
hundreds, there were thousands of corpses, laid out side by side on a
meadow, as in a mortuary, before the burial, for identification! I saw
harrowing scenes, my heart was torn asunder: troops of relations who
sought or who, sobbing, had found. A terrible air of woe filled the
whole atmosphere. I felt sick and turned quite pale, it required all my
energy to prevent myself from fainting, but Herman put his arm through
mine and supported me as well as he was able without ostentation, while
a couple of doctors from among the group of physicians to whom I was
speaking gave me something to smell. Oh, Mamma, it was a terrible
spectacle, all those pallid, shapeless, swollen corpses, on the green
grass, and, above, the sky, which had become deep blue again!

"I have informed the municipal council, in accordance with your wish and
my father's, that you are each of you presenting a personal donation of
a million florins and I presented my own at the same time. The whole
world seems in sympathy with us; money is flowing in from every side,