ow was it possible that a man could
enter the house of an affectionate host as a welcome guest in the
evening, and by next morning leave him not an inch of land on which to
put his foot, or a roof to cover his head! "And one has to get
accustomed to such things!" thought she.

All the day long their journey lay through that brain-wearying plain
whose endless flatness oppressed soul and body with its monotony and
soon drove her back to her own thoughts. Towards evening there were
signs of rain. Clouds were rising and then, at least, there would be
something new to point at in the eternal monotony of the sky.
Unfortunately clouds have the bad habit of bringing tempests along with
them, and tempests are evil travelling companions on the steppes of the
_Alfoeld_.[9] The towers of the town they were trying to reach were still
only dimly visible on the horizon. In ordinary weather it would not have
mattered if they had arrived late, for they had reckoned upon the
moonlight; but there could be no moon to-night, instead of her a storm
full of angry lightnings was approaching. Already from afar they could
hear it rumbling as it drove dust-clouds before it, could hear that
peculiar, continuous, roar as of some giant hand playing uninterruptedly
on the keys of some terrible organ. Whoever has been caught on the
_Alfoeld_ in a storm knows the meaning of that wind; it means that the
tempest is bringing hail with it.

[Footnote 9: The great Hungarian plain.]

One thing was now certain: they must turn aside somewhere. All that
Henrietta observed, however, was that her carriage stood still for a
moment, and then Hatszegi's carriage went on in front, the baron himself
seizing the horses' reins and shouting to the coachman behind him:
"After me as hard as you can tear!" With that they left the road and
plunged right across country through ditches and swamps and low, marshy
ground till the water came up to the very axles of the wheels and
Clementina shrieked that they were perishing. But there was no need to
be afraid. Hatszegi was a skilful coachman, who could ever find his way
even where there was no way at all. About a four hours' journey off, a
pump now became visible, and beyond it a little hut loomed white and
high, there they must seek a refuge from the tempest as it passed over
them. And indeed they had only just reached the small courtyard when the
first lumps of ice as big as nuts, began bombarding the windows of the
carriage