Then we had sauntered back. It was chance; but lo! we were on the Lánczhid, once more! The Duna rippled and swirled below. The black barges slumbered against the stone rakpartok. The glittering belts of the city-lights flashed in long perspectives along the wide river's sweeping course and twinkled from square to square, from terrace to terrace. Across from us, at a garden-café, a cigány orchestra was pulsating; crying out, weeping, asking, refusing, wooing, mocking, inebriating, despairing, triumphant! All the warm Magyar night about us was dominated by those melting chromatics, poignant cadences—those harmonies eternally oriental, minor-keyed, insidious, nerve-thrilling. The arabesques of the violins, the vehement rhythms of the clangorous czimbalom!.... Ah, this time on the Lánczhid, neither for Imre nor me was it the sombre Bakony song, "O jaj! az álom nelkül"—but instead the free, impassioned leap and acclaim,—"Huszár legény vagyok!—Huszár legény vagyok!"
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