_March 23rd._
One gets the impression that things have been like this for ever so
long, though it all started only the day before yesterday. Good Friday
was just two days ago. To-day is Sunday—but not Easter. The resurrection
has failed and the grave-diggers sit grinning on the tomb.
In some churches the bells were ringing, in others the people had gone
to Mass, my brother’s message kept me at home. Again there was a
newspaper lying on the table. In huge black letters Béla Kun’s
proclamation to the proletariats of the world was glaring at me: “To
Everybody!” It was revolutionary incendiarism, inciting hatred. In their
old-fashioned way the church bells appealed above the roofs for love and
good-will. Meanwhile the wireless had spread broadcast the news of
Hungary’s shame and misfortune. And from Moscow there came the
triumphant answer. It is published in _The People’s Voice_:
“This afternoon at five o’clock the Hungarian Soviet Republic got into
wireless communication with the Russian Soviet. The Hungarian Soviet
called Comrade Lenin to the apparatus. Twenty minutes later Moscow
answered: ‘Lenin speaking. Request Comrade Béla Kun should come to
wireless station.’ But Béla Kun was at the meeting of the People’s
Commissaries, so another comrade answered from the wireless station:
‘Last night the Hungarian Proletariat seized all powers, established the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and greets you as the leader of the
International Proletariat. The Social Democratic Party has adopted the
Communist point of view and the two parties have united. We call
ourselves the Hungarian Socialist Party. We ask for instructions in this
matter. Béla Kun is Commissary for Foreign Affairs. The Hungarian Soviet
offers the Russian Soviet a defensive and offensive alliance. Fully
armed, we turn against all the enemies of the Proletariat and ask for
information concerning the military situation.’”
At nine in the evening Moscow called again.
“Lenin speaking.... Hearty greetings to the Hungarian Soviet’s
Proletarian Government, in particular to Comrade Béla Kun. I have just
communicated your message to the Congress of the Communist Party of
Bolshevik Russia. Enormous enthusiasm ... we will send a report on the
military situation as soon as possible.... A permanent wireless
connection between Budapest and Moscow is absolutely necessary. With
Communist greetings, Lenin.”
‘Lenin speaking’.... How terrible these two words sound; how terrible
the deathly silence that follows them! ‘Lenin speaking’.... So he is
there now, with his bald head bent sideways, his enigmatic smile frozen
on his broad mouth, his Kalmuk eyes open wide and his nostrils expanded
as though he smelt blood. ‘Lenin speaking’.... And Trotsky is there too,
his bestial, cruel face peering over us; his mouth broadens and the red
beard on his chin shakes. All the other Russian Jewish tyrants are there
too, and they wave their bloody hands. They may give their orders; their
lieutenants will obey, and we shall live or die according to their good
pleasure and instructions.
My brother Béla came into the room and I learned from him that I could
not go home any more. In hasty excited sentences he told me that
yesterday evening when he had gone to see our mother the glaring lamps
of a big car had suddenly lit up the dark street. It stopped in front of
the next house, though this has no entrance from our street. Three men
dismounted from the car and kept our street door under observation.
“Mother’s housekeeper has been talking to them this afternoon, probably
to inform them that you have left. She had scarcely returned when the
car pulled up before our door and the men asked for you. They wanted to
come up to our flat. They insisted, affirming that they came from the
police, and had to see you personally. The concièrge told them that you
had left town and banged the door in their faces. The car, however,
remained where it was and kept the house under observation. The men only
left at dawn, hoping to see you return.”
While he told me all this I had a feeling as though an ugly hand were
groping for me in the dark, trying to get hold of me, but missing me,
passing beside me. It was the hand of Lenin.
My brother said, following up his own thoughts: “You cannot remain with
the Zsigmondys. It is impossible for you to go home. They informed the
concierge that they would come and fetch you to-day.”
[Illustration:
“... LENIN SPEAKING.”
]
My mother’s face appeared before me, a haunted expression in her blue
eyes. It would be terrible for her to see me arrested. What was I to do?
I had sent a message to Count Stephen Bethlen this morning, but he had
already left home. Everybody for whom I send has disappeared. The
threads are broken. How shall I start? Left to themselves, what can
women do at a time like this?
I had not noticed that the Secretary of the Women’s Union had entered.
He told me that in a few days it would be impossible to travel without a
permit and advised me to leave town while it was still possible. The
Kállays had been prevented by the crowds at the station from leaving by
train to-day, but would start to-morrow, and invited me to go with them.
I hesitated; but, after all, it was only a question of a few days. So as
soon as I was alone I wrote to my mother and told her I should leave
next day, though I did not yet know my destination, and asked her to
spend the evening with me.
Hours have never passed so slowly. When it was quite dark I escaped from
the house. A cold wind blew through the empty streets. The tired town
had once more resigned itself to its fate and now suffered in silence;
the posters alone spoke; huge sheets covered the walls. The same words
everywhere: Proletariat ... Dictatorship ... Proletariat.... The broken
street lamps had not been repaired, and the pavement was covered with
refuse: for days the streets have not been swept.
The staircase was in darkness. A single lamp was burning in my sister’s
sitting-room. And there, in the dim light, I saw my mother again. I was
shocked by her appearance: she seemed to have become shorter since we
had parted and her face was much thinner. Did she fret for me? Was I the
cause of this change? Never in my life did I feel so moved in her
presence as then.
And yet she seemed quite calm, and on one occasion she even laughed,
with her own hearty laughter. We talked of all sorts of things, except
the fact that I should no longer be with them on the morrow. The
children seemed quite happy, chattering among themselves in a corner.
The hours passed so happily for me that now and then I had the illusion
that the old times had returned for a moment before disappearing for
ever.
One or the other would say: “At most it can last a week or two.” Or
again: “Colonel Vyx has been locked up and an English officer has been
assaulted in the street. Insults of this kind will surely not be taken
lying down by the Great Powers. It is impossible that the Entente should
suffer the establishment of Bolshevism in Hungary. She knew how to send
ultimatums demanding lines of demarcation, so that the Roumanians and
her other friends could loot at leisure, now she is sure to display more
energy when her own interests are at stake.”
“Let us put no hope in anybody but ourselves,” said my brother-in-law.
“It was the Entente who brought us to this.”
One of my nephews said: “That is the reason why so many people are
rather pleased that the Communists display hostility to the Entente. Who
knows, perhaps our territorial integrity....”
“Don’t expect any good from these people,” I interrupted. “Among the
apostles of Communism there may be some idealists, but those who apply
it practically are all scoundrels. It is impossible, man cannot
withstand nature.”
Suddenly someone asked if I had decided where I was going to. Should I
accept the Kállay’s invitation, or should I attempt to get across the
river Ipoly to Pressburg and thence into foreign territory?
“Do the Kállays realise what this invitation means in these days?”
“You must not accept it otherwise,” my mother said.
“Wherever you go, you must mislead those who are after you,” said my
brother-in-law. “Write a letter and have it posted in another part of
the country.”
My mother rose: “It is time to go.”
My heart stopped beating. But she held her head high and there were no
tears in her eyes. Only when leading her down the stairs did I feel that
she leaned more heavily on me than she used to. Who will lead her when I
am gone? My nephew, Alexander Eperjessy, took her home. I asked him to
occupy my room and stay with my mother, otherwise I should not be able
to tear myself away.
“Don’t worry about me,” mother said; “and don’t you come back till you
can do so openly and without danger.”
I have been with her almost daily as long as I can remember, yet it was
only this evening that I really learned to appreciate her. She had never
asked for anything and yet was always ready to give. She never spoke of
herself and listened to everybody. She had no words of endearment, she
kissed vaguely and her arms were rarely caressing. She was never
demonstrative, the seat of her affections was her heart and not her
lips. And while we were walking side by side through the dark night on
our short, sad road, I felt that if this heart were one day to stop,
then mine would throb but haltingly ever after.
We had passed the house which had given me shelter. I thought my mother
had not noticed it, being accustomed to go on towards home. But suddenly
she stopped, and, as was her wont on rare occasions, she drew my head to
her quickly and gave me a kiss which went half into the air.
“Now, my dear, God bless you!”
I tried to find her hand but failed. She had already left me and I could
no longer see her in the dark. I could only hear her step in the empty
street. That quaint, dear step, which sounded as if she dragged one of
her feet a little. Then that ceased too. Silence, empty silence,
dominated the night. Silently I wept, and the world disappeared in my
tears.
* * * * *
_March 24th._
Dawn. The dawn rose with a dull greyness over the ill-fated city, as
though the light had risen from the mire. Morning was in sole possession
of the dirty unswept streets. I leant far out of the window, and in the
distance I noticed two soldiers staggering painfully along. One of the
achievements of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: prohibition of
alcohol!
As I turned back I caught sight of my travelling bag. My mother had
packed it yesterday and had smuggled it out of the house without the
spying servant observing them. I sat down by it and waited. After a time
the house awoke and the time passed more quickly. I do not remember all
that followed: Zsigmondy changed my money, and I noticed how little I
had—one thousand six hundred crowns. I counted it over again, but that
did not make it more. My mother had wanted to give me some, but it had
all come so unexpectedly that we had only very little money in the
house, and she would need that little.
I should have liked to put back the clock, but there was the cab waiting
in the street and they were carrying my bag down the stairs. As I waved
my hand from the corridor Mrs. Zsigmondy leant out of the door which had
opened to me so hospitably and smiled through her tears.
When I was in the carriage it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps I
ought not to have accepted Zsigmondy’s offer to come with me to the
station: he might get into trouble; but he insisted so simply and
heartily that I could say no more.
From behind the clouds a pale sun lit up the gloomy town. All the shops
were closed, and the tiny red flags adorning the buildings fluttered in
an icy wind. Careworn faces passed rapidly before the window of the
rattling cab. A black crowd had gathered on the pavement in front of a
pork-butcher’s shop, the signboard of which advertised luscious hams and
appetising sausages, looking now like the impossibilities of a
prehistoric age. But the shop window was absolutely empty. Further on a
baker’s shop displayed a wooden sign on which were painted beautiful
loaves and rolls. This, too, gave the impression of a diagram in a
museum, showing things of the past; it made one feel suddenly hungry.
Posters everywhere, innumerable red posters. But there were no goods in
the shops, and disappointed women slunk along the walls.
“The Red Newspaper!” howled a tiny urchin. “The Young Proletarian!” And
he waved the papers in the air. Few passers-by bought any, but went on
with their heads drawn between their shoulders as if they expected
blows. Is this the town of the glorious revolution, this sad mass of
dirty, frightened buildings standing amidst piles of dustbins filled to
the brim? Is this the rapturous achievement for the sake of which
Hungary had to perish—a town where the factories have stopped, the shops
are closed and all work has ceased? A town where all and everybody have
but one of two thoughts: either “We have lost everything,” or “Now
everything is ours!”
The appearance of the principal railway station was like a nightmare.
Its walls were covered with obscene drawings and dirty scribblings; it
had not been swept, and sawdust had been strewn over the mud.
Machine-guns were standing in the ankle-deep dirt, greasy pieces of
paper were flying about, unnameable filth covered the flagstones and
oozed beneath the people’s feet. A rough, impatient crowd pushed and
jostled, and the air was pervaded by an insufferable stench.
While Zsigmondy took my ticket I looked at the people. Many of them kept
their eyes to the ground as if they wanted to hide—these were in flight.
Some swore obscenely. A sailor was examining luggage at the entrance,
and rewarded himself for his trouble by continually putting things from
them into his pocket. At a distance I saw Elisabeth Kállay. She saw me
too, but we did not take any notice of each other. Suddenly I found my
sister Mary standing by my side. She was very pale and only her eyes
greeted me. The Secretary of the Women’s Union came towards me: “The
trip won’t last long and I shall bring you news!”
I passed the newspaper stall. Nothing but ‘Red Newspapers,’ ‘The
People’s Voice,’ ‘The Young Proletarian,’ and the little red and blue
volumes of ‘The Workmen’s Library.’ In the crowd I managed to embrace my
sister. Then, “God bless you, Zsigmondy!”
Now I was on the platform. I had to walk a good distance before I shrank
into the corner of my compartment. The train was a long time in
starting, and human shapes were hurrying down the corridor. A fat man
tore the door open and looked inside as if searching for somebody. Then
I, too, looked on the ground like those anxious to hide.
Suddenly the columns before the window slowly began to move. Then the
shape of goods sheds passed slowly by. The wheels rattled over the
points. Then the compartment became lighter: we had reached the open
track. And as the train gathered speed I knew that I had left the town,
with its People’s Commissaries, its police, its prisons, behind me. I
was free!
For a moment I realised this, then again my consciousness became dimmed
and a pleasant fatigue overcame me. From the window I watched the
telegraph wires rise, then came a post and jerked them down, then they
rose again till the next post came. I turned to look at my fellow
travellers. Every seat was occupied. In one sat an officer whose
insignia of rank had been torn from his collar, leaving the marks of
three stars. His field-gray cavalry cap was ornamented with a red
rosette. As soon as Budapest was left behind us he took his cap off and
threw the rosette out of the window. An old lady looked on in alarm and
drew away from him: her husband wore the ‘red man’ ostentatiously in his
button-hole. Both seemed scared. Opposite sat a well-dressed man, who
buried his face deeply in a book, using it as a screen. I looked at it:
_The Workmen’s Library_. On the title-page was the drawing of a book
from the pages of which sprang a naked, unkempt workman, holding a
burning lamp in his hand. This lamp, I suppose, represented the light
spread by the contents of the book. I strained my eyes to catch the
title: it ran “_The Principles of Communism_, by Frederick Engels.
Translated by Ernest Garami.”
Why read it now? I thought. Why did he not read it long ago? Why have
not all those who suffer to-day read it long ago? It was there, always,
in their midst. Its principles were set out in a thousand publications,
in a thousand minds. These little books have been doing their work for a
long time, and their wrappers were pink only because for the time being
they did not dare to demonstrate outwardly that they were red.
“The slave is sold once for all. The proletarian has to sell himself
every day, every hour.... The slave frees himself if he abolishes the
institution of slavery. The proletarian can only free himself by
completely destroying private property. This cannot be achieved by any
other means than by a revolution.” And in the Socialist revolution there
is an end to the family, the country, and religion.
I stared at the stranger. Why did he want to read about these things
now? They have been proclaimed aloud for tens of years. But what had
been done in Hungary to counteract them? Has anybody been at work among
the people contradicting them? Has anyone founded a popular library to
proclaim the tenets of Christ, the significance of country and family,
the primary conditions of human society, with similar persistence among
the people? The Communists worked hard. They fixed their goal and with
every action, every word, every letter, strove to achieve domination.
Meanwhile Magyardom let the decades pass passively, inactively, and now
that the earth has given way under its feet it has lost its head.
The alarmed fellow-traveller went on reading his book, hastily turning
page after page. I should have liked to tell him that it was no good
hurrying now—he was too late.
Just then a man stopped in the entrance of our compartment, a violin in
his grimy black hand. His low forehead was surrounded by curling
oriental black hair, his eyes were bloodshot, and one of his nostrils
was missing, as though it had been gnawed away by some animal. He
pressed his fiddle under his bristly blue chin, a smile began to spread
over his horrible syphilitic face, and with a slow rhythm the bow passed
over the chords. His body swayed to and fro with the tune, and each
movement seemed to raise a filthy stench in the compartment. The tune
and the musician became one, and above the rattling of the train sounded
the strains of the ‘Internationale.’
“I’ll play it again if anybody wants to learn it,” he said, as he
finished, and looked round with a sly, aggressive look. But nobody
answered. Only the man with the ‘red man’ in his button-hole jumped up
nervously and waved a twenty-crown bank-note in his hand. The filthy
black hands seized it eagerly and disappeared. Then we heard the fiddle
whining in the next compartment: the Jew-Gipsy was teaching the new tune
to the people.
“If anybody wants to learn it....”
Aszód!... The train stopped. I had often heard that after Budapest Aszód
had been the place where the Communists had met with the greatest
measure of success. I looked out of the window. Over the Reformatory a
huge red flag was flying, and a similar flag was hoisted over the
station. A crowd gathered in front of one of the carriages, and some
people who were late came tearing along and took their hats off. A fat
little man with Semitic features and a red rosette descended from a
reserved compartment. He might have been a broker, but now he was
addressed as “Comrade on a Political Mission.” He was received by a
deputation and people cringed before him. I noticed that the crowd was
composed of two types only: the impudent adventurer and the frightened
coward, but presently others joined them. Someone said they were
agitators from Budapest and had come with armed soldiers. Propaganda and
terror—the two means of government of the Communists. The fiddler was
one of them: he, too, was an agitator.
I passed through the festive crowd unobserved, they being too busy to
pay any heed to the travellers. Far out beyond the platform a
dilapidated little local train was smoking. Mrs. Kállay and her two
daughters were heading for it, so I followed them. At last we dared to
get into the same compartment. We even exchanged a few words, and the
further we got from the Red town the freer we felt.
Elisabeth Kállay whispered to me that she was hiding her diadem in her
dress, and Lenke furtively produced an old revolver from under her coat.
We could not help laughing. Other passengers also seemed to have their
secrets, for many of them were abnormally corpulent and sat
uncomfortably on their seats. Everybody was saving whatever he could,
and nowadays only that which one can carry on one’s person can be said
to belong to one.
The air blowing in through the window was pure and sharp, and beyond the
line were lush meadows, deep, swampy fields, budding trees, white
cottages, roads, carts and peasants. Here everything seemed to be going
on as usual, as if nothing had happened. The mud of the country roads
was cleaner than that on the asphalt of the town.
We had left the flat country of the disgraced capital and presently the
hillocks of Nográd came to meet us under the evening sky, the bare,
red-brown woods and white villages on the banks of the Galga forming the
landscape.
A landau was waiting for us behind the station. The coachman took off
his hat respectfully and spoke to us just as in the old days. How
strange it seemed! Springless carts rattled down the road and the
elderly men in them doffed their hats: had not they yet been told that
they were in duty bound to hate those who had always protected them? A
church bell pealed somewhere on the top of a hill, and the light of a
bright fire streamed out of the door of a house. A woman stood within
its beams and made the sign of the Cross. She did not yet know that the
new power had declared war on God.
Now the road goes up a hill, the wheels crunch on fine gravel, a gate
opens between the trees, and a sudden light flares up in the night. We
have reached the Kállays’ turretted castle.
In a few minutes we are all sitting together in a well heated room. A
wide garden surrounds the house, the night surrounds the garden. And the
world is far away, somewhere beyond.
* * * * *
Berczel. _March 27th, 1919._
Days have passed since my arrival, yet I do not think that I shall ever
forget the first morning when I awoke here. I seemed to be floating in a
pure ocean of absolute silence. Then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, a
small voice fell from above into the ocean of silence. After the
threatening hum of the revolution in the city, the wild howling, the
panting hatred and the ominous nightly tramplings, there was such beauty
in this voice that I remember being enraptured in the semi-consciousness
of waking.
A small bird was sitting on a twig before my window. Instead of the
abyss of human infernos, of narrow streets and worn dark walls, my eyes
lighted on a twig and a bird, and I wept out of sheer gratitude that
such things still existed. I should have liked to gather in my hands
every tiny particle of the sound so that I might send it to those who
remained prisoners among the stones of that accursed city.
[Illustration:
GEORGE NYISTOR.
LABOURER. ASSISTANT COMMISSARY FOR AGRICULTURE.
]
How different is life here! It is like a fairy-tale related to soothe
children at bed-time.... It is a quiet village. On the hillock can be
seen the bell tower and the shingled roof of the church. Below, at its
foot, are small cottages and small farmyards. People go to bed early in
the evening: only now and then is a window lit up. The cow bells ring, a
dog barks somewhere. And horror does not creep through the night, worry
does not sit on the threshold of the morn, threatening the dread shadow
of events to come. To-day is like yesterday and to-morrow bears no
different aspect. Sometimes I fear that conscience has died of
exhaustion within me. A clouded glass screen has risen between me and
the world. Even the village seems to be beyond the screen and there is
nothing on this side of it but a castle, a wide park, and narrow,
useless little paths on which the past treads undisturbed. These are set
with white seats which have not been provided for fatigue. Beds of
flowers which only exist in order to be beautiful, dark violets, without
a purpose but just to flower.
A white lace hat appears and disappears in the cool sunshine: the widow
of Benjamin Kállay passes under my window. Her husband, the most
brilliant Finance Minister of Francis Joseph’s reign, the inspiring
spirit of the Monarchy’s Eastern policy, the governor of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, had been a scholar and a historian. The old lady had been
the uncrowned queen of the small southern provinces and one of the most
beautiful women of the receptions at the Vienna Burg. Now she discusses
with the bailiff the spring sowings, though when the harvest comes they
may no longer be hers. For that matter, are the house and gardens still
her own? Everything is uncertain. She also worries about a son and a
daughter. Elisabeth Kállay had been the one Hungarian maid of honour of
Queen Zita, accordingly the Communists eye her with distrust. Frederick
Kállay is an aide-de-camp to the Archduke Joseph and had left Budapest
with him. She has had no news since then. “Good God, what are we coming
to?”
When she says this her two daughters rise in revolt: they will have no
despondency. I like to hear them speak: they voice the fine, strong
vitality of my race:
“And you, why are you always staring into the air?” Elisabeth has put
her hand on my shoulder. “Instead of moping like this you had better go
and commit your thoughts and sorrows to paper.”
“I have taken a good many notes. When I left I asked my young nephew to
keep them for me. But what’s the good of going on with them?”
Elisabeth Kállay, however, urged me on: “Go on writing your diary; it
will come in useful some day.”
Thus one evening, when I was left to myself, I took up my pen and looked
back on the past days and gathered fading memories. It is a practice,
however, that makes things both easier and harder. This diary affords
the relief of self-confession, but it also tortures me by compelling me
to live the past over again. And who shall say if I shall ever reach the
end?
I looked up from my writing: Lenke Kállay appeared at my window, holding
her head high. She brought news, good news. Elisabeth said: “Let no one
dare to speak of evil tidings.”
Stephen Bethlen is in Vienna and has petitioned the Powers through the
French High Commissioner, M. Alizé, for help against Bolshevism. The
Entente is certain to intervene and will send troops to checkmate the
Proletarian Dictators. Thirty thousand French soldiers have embarked at
Marseilles, with General Pétain in command.
“It won’t continue like this much longer. We shall get on our legs again
presently.”
Did they say it, or did I? We have said it for a thousand years and when
the men grew tired of saying it the women said it. They said it during
the Tartar invasion, after the defeat at Mohács. To-day we say it again,
though everything has collapsed, though we have been robbed of our all
and are the most unfortunate people on earth.
Yet we still trust and have faith. Why? Nobody knows. Yet how often have
I felt in me that faith which is stronger than our fate, and how often
have I noticed it flaming up in others! What is it? The mysterious
desire for existence? Or is it more than that, is it the subconscious
knowledge of our vitality?
It is like the belief in the miraculous deer—an old legend which is ever
present in the Hungarian mind in time of trouble. It tells how among the
endless swamps of Maeotis, at the beginning of time, a white deer with
shining antlers appeared to two brothers who were lost in the morass.
The divine deer lured them on and guided them over invisible tracks. And
to this day, whenever we fall in the morass the miraculous animal
appears, gleaming white and leaping lightly across the bog, and guiding
us along invisible tracks towards the future.
Things can’t remain like this: we shall get on our legs again presently.
The Miraculous Deer is leading us.
* * * * *
_March 28th._
The folding doors of the big drawing-room on the first floor open
quietly, and in the room beyond books with gilt backings are set among
flowers. The fire is already burning brightly in the porcelain stove in
the dining-room, whilst above the red-shaded lamp the ceiling appears
heavy and dark. Between the windows stands a chest that once belonged to
Imre Thököly: the walls are ornamented with Oriental dishes and old
Chinese plates.... The footman stands stiff in his black dress coat: his
white shirt gleams, and his hands holding the dish are gloved in white.
Little silver buttons glitter on the page’s jacket.
My thoughts fly homeward: in the villages there is still a sense of
home, which has long since departed from the towns. I thought of the
past winter, the closed shops, the scanty tables. If only I could give
that sense of home to somebody.... And again I feel the glass screen
raised between myself and reality.
Mrs. Benjamin Kállay, dressed in white silk, presides over the table.
Her head is held up a trifle haughtily; her sharp profile is crowned
with snow-white hair, and her full chin disappears in lace. Somehow she
reminds me of a portrait of Louis XV.... Presently she nods and rises:
her gait is solemn and slow: the wings of the door open before her and
we follow her into the drawing-room.
Outside, drums are being beaten in the village, and now and then a scrap
of the crier’s announcement reaches our ears.
“The revolutionary council.... Revolutionary tribunals ... the president
and two members ... prosecuting commissary ... clerk of the court.... No
restrictions whatever ... any hour of the day ... in the open ... death
sentence ... carried out without delay....”
I had a curious impression that the words seemed to have little
connection with what was said: ‘Lenin speaking....’ Nobody actually said
that, yet I seemed to hear those two words as a sort of refrain.
The drumming went on:
“False reports ... revolutionary tribunal ... executed.... The
Revolutionary Council is abolished.... In the Soviet republic all rank,
title and nobility are abolished....”
At this moment the footman brought the coffee on a silver tray: “Is it
your Excellency’s pleasure that coffee be served here?”
How incongruous it all seemed! The huge room, the unreal continuation of
the old aristocratic life. Is it real, or is it a mirage? The snow-white
lady, her head erect, among her lace, sitting in an arm-chair. Her two
daughters, one leaning gracefully over her embroidery, the other turning
the leaves of a book. The huge Venetian glass chandelier, which once
shone over Maria Theresa, spreads a gentle light. On the wall, between
two pastels representing children, the Empire clock of gilded wood ticks
slowly, and its ticking sounds as if ripe corn were being rubbed
together. Slowly life is passing before our eyes, a grain of life with
every moment that departs beyond recall.
The mirage is still there. Nothing is altered. But outside, the filthy
tide is rising, spreads and rolls onwards from the Red town, covers the
fields, touches the villages, laps at the walls of the cottages. It
comes nearer and nearer; and the wind which it raises drives before it
phantoms which rush by and in their flight glare in through the windows.
Elsewhere it is different. The glitter of the peasant’s scythe menaces
the castle. The despoiled landlords have to flee or become the bailiffs
of Béla Kun’s ‘Co-operatives of Production’ on their own estates. Our
fate is coming without doubt. But still, here in the great drawing-room,
life has not yet altered. These people round me are just waiting for
whatever is to come, and whether death or reprieve be their destiny,
they are faithful to the blood which is in them.