_April 24th._
As it was getting dark last night a man crept into the yard. He looked
round carefully: the street was empty: suddenly he ran up the back
stairs.
Alarming news had been spreading over the town during the day: bands of
terrorists are going about arresting people. The Cabinet is issuing open
threats, becoming reckless in its fear of overthrow. Strict orders are
being sent to the provincial towns. The Directorate of Balassagyarmat
has been dismissed, having been accused of weakness and of favouring the
gentlefolk. New men are coming forward, a young fellow scarcely twenty
years old is to be the Dictator of the proud county. Another of the same
type is to command the garrison. Jews have gone, but still Jews are
coming. They have orders to take hostages in the county, so that should
the Czechs attack these could be thrown to the fury of the mob.
Something is necessary to occupy the rabble whilst the Directorate is
making its escape.
Lights in the windows disappeared earlier than usual this evening, and
the steps of the patrols resounded through empty, overawed streets.
Aladár Huszár is the friend of a people who are of no importance to-day.
The man who stole in by the back door brought a warning: he must escape,
they are going to arrest him to-night. So Huszár left his home and went
into the dark streets.
The cold penetrated everywhere, even through the walls. We were sitting
in fur coats. The candle had burnt to the end, and there was no firewood
in the house.
Suddenly we heard the noise of rifle-butts banging furiously upon the
door.
Mrs. Huszár looked at me: “Is it for him, or is it for you?”
We put out the candle and opened the window a little. Soldiers were
standing outside. “Is anything the matter?”
“No,” came the answer; then a face emerged from the obscurity: “We’re
only making preparations.” The face looked scared. “We’re looking for
the comrade commanders.”
“They’ve gone out.”
There was a good deal of swearing. Then: “The good-for-nothing
scoundrels!”
I wondered if the officers had deserted too!
* * * * *
_April 25th._
To-day has been like a nightmare. Bayonets have been glinting in front
of our windows. About noon soldiers poured through the main street. They
climbed fully armed into commandeered carts, and drove furiously towards
Örhalom. The Czechs have opened their attack! At nightfall the clatter
of arms was heard in the direction of the prison. Doors slammed and dogs
howled in the dark: the Communists were taking their hostages....
The telepathy of common disaster enables us to guess each other’s
thoughts; we say nothing, but we are thinking in common; never has there
been such sympathy among suffering humanity. On the Saturday before
Easter, only a few days ago, Aladár Huszár remarked: “I am so sorry for
you. It must be terrible to have to leave one’s own home, not knowing
whither to go and not being sure of a safe lodging for the night.”
To-day I thought precisely the same thing concerning him. He has gone,
with his faithful friend George Pongrácz. To-morrow they will come here
to fetch him and will search the house. We shall all be questioned. And
if they recognize me.... Well, so be it!
* * * * *
_April 26th._
It is impossible to sleep these nights, and the lumbering steps of
patrols passing in the icy darkness alone mark the progress of time.
Early this morning a Red soldier called and inquired after Aladár
Huszár. “He’s got to report at once.” Then another came and questioned
the servants. Mrs. Huszár was unperturbed. They told her that if her
husband did not turn up they would arrest her in his place, so she
proceeded to pack a small bag, just as I had done not long before. About
noon detectives came and held a consultation in the ante-room. Then they
went through the house systematically, and as they proceeded I fled
before them, from room to room. When I could go no further I hid under
the staircase, feeling rather like an animal caught in a trap. Would
they find me? What good had my efforts been? Again I felt the invisible
hand groping around me....
They went, but others soon came. Across the road, at the corner, stood a
sentry, his face turned towards the house. In the afternoon posters
appeared on the walls—red paper with huge black letters: “He who
receives a visitor in his house will be summoned before the
Revolutionary Tribunal. Any stranger found within the town after
twenty-four hours will be expelled.”
Life has fresh troubles in store for me every day. I am resigned to my
fate: but ten years’ hard labour are in store for those who have taken
me in!
Mrs. George Pongrácz came to us, her husband has had to fly for his
life. They have only recently been married. Poor girl, she is left quite
alone. We tried to devise some plan to escape from this place. Mrs.
Pongrácz said at last: “In a village not far from here there’s a dear
old lady whom I know very well; nobody would look for you there.”
We decided on it hurriedly. Mrs. Pongrácz wrote a letter to her friend,
Mrs. Michael Beniczky, at Szügy, and told her that Elisabeth Földváry, a
poor relation of the Huszárs, with a weak heart(!) begged her
hospitality for a few days as she was afraid of the Czech guns. Then she
left, and we made hasty preparations. Mrs. Huszár hid her husband’s arms
and clothes and then we collected all the letters and papers in the
house that might have been dangerous and made a fire of them in the
nursery. Huszár’s desperate counter-revolutionary writings went up in
flames—letters, handbills, appeals of the Women’s Federation—a sad _auto
da fé_: months of hard work, hope and enthusiasm were committed to the
flames. However, the children enjoyed it and danced round the
unaccustomed blaze; even we ourselves drew nearer and were glad of the
warmth.
We were called up again during the night: a cart stopped in front of the
house, and the steps of soldiers resounded. Those who will live after us
will never be able to understand the terror and anxiety which were
conjured up by a few steps in the night, a cart stopping in front of the
house.... “They are coming...!”
Mrs. Huszár went to the door. They were soldiers—two Red officers come
to commandeer night quarters. They marched in and took possession of a
room upstairs, and for a time we could hear them moving about overhead.
Are the Czechs going to attack? But the great silence of expectation
continues undisturbed under the frigid sky.
* * * * *
_April 27th._
The riverside churches were ringing their bells for Mass, and the town
had turned its face in their direction. Our street was empty, except for
the Red soldier on sentry duty at the corner. Mrs. Huszár went with me
to the door, and when the Red sentry looked towards the town I slipped
quietly out. His back was turned to me and I escaped his notice. I
carried a tiny parcel under my arm, containing just a few things. How
little suffices for our bare needs! Mrs. Pongrácz followed me, and we
went quickly across the main street.
I had not been in this direction since the evening when I arrived here,
and my imagination had replaced the topography of the town on the banks
of the Ipoly by quite a different place. It had placed an ancient town
hall with a venerable tower on the market place, where none actually
existed. It had placed around it old-fashioned houses with arcades where
in reality were tiny shops crowded together and an old fountain in the
middle of the square. I looked round, but reality left no impression on
me and the picture of my imagination remained.
Whenever people came towards us I experienced a feeling of terror; I
raised my handkerchief and pretended to blow my nose.
“If there are many more people coming,” I said, laughing even in my
distress, “I’m likely to get a sore nose.”
Red soldiers were standing at the railway crossing, and they asked us
where we were going.
“We are only going to Szügy, near by, to spend the day.”
There came another few yards of street with suburban houses, and
suddenly we found ourselves on the main road among endless open fields
basking in the sunshine. There was a sharp wind blowing, but spring
hovered over the woods of the neighbouring hills. The wayside flowers
stood in the grass like long-waisted, wide-petticoated little peasant
girls. It was like a feast-day, a Sunday of a hundred bright colours.
Suddenly I felt an inexpressible desire for freedom. For weeks I had
been hiding among friends, stealthily, making myself as small as
possible, like one endeavouring to make his way through a thorny
thicket. Now at last I had reached the open and the sun was shining on
my face. I laughed with sheer joy, and the wind mimicked my mirth as it
swept softly over the land.
As if the main road were a church parade, carriage followed carriage in
long procession, fat young Jews in service uniform with the Soviet cap
lolling within them. Fine thoroughbreds pranced beside them, stolen
horses with grooms in stolen liveries. A smart turn-out approached
rapidly, the harness and trappings ornamented with the silver arms of a
count. The coachmen wore a Hungarian livery. Lolling back on the
cushions was a vulgar-looking man, and beside him a shapeless but
smartly dressed female was making herself comfortable.
“That is the Dictator of the county and his wife,” whispered Mrs.
Pongrácz; “I recognise Count Mailath’s mackintosh. The dress his wife is
wearing belonged to the Countess, she wore it when her husband was
installed Lord Lieutenant. These people have taken possession of the
castle of Gárdony and have had all the furniture they want sent from it
to their own house. The ‘comrade’ is said to be vastly annoyed because
coats of arms and crests ‘disfigure’ the cigarette-cases he acquired
there.”
I turned my face towards the fields; the reflection of the sun glittered
in a circle round the spokes of the wheels and dust rose in long clouds
beneath them. When they had passed and the dust had settled I looked
anxiously behind me. Presently peasants on foot overtook us; it is only
honest people who walk nowadays. One bare-footed old peasant carried his
boots dangling from his crook over his back. Poor deluded millions! Do
they still believe that everything belongs to the Proletarians? Do they
still believe it when the carriages of their former rulers throw the
dust into their eyes as their new masters ride by in them? When will the
peasantry of this credulous country crush those who have dared to trick
it?
I caught sight of the spire of a church beyond the turning of the road,
and shingled roofs hiding among the trees. There stood the fine old
County Hall, with its double roof dating from the period of Maria
Theresa—a red flag floating over it. And plastered all over the walls of
the cottages were the joyful posters: “Long live the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat.”
We left the main road. A red handkerchief waved from a pole on top of a
peasant’s cottage: the Directorate had resided there. Then we crossed an
abandoned cemetery, a tall crucifix standing out darkly above the high
grass that covered the tombstones. But the sun was shining and the wind
blew freshly. We came to a neglected old garden; within the open gate of
wrought-iron Red Guards were loafing; happy or unhappy, whoever liked
could go in and out. A large number of munition cases were stacked in
the wood shed and on the terrace of the old manor-house. I looked at the
inscriptions: _Explosive._ _No. 15 ecrasite shell._
“There is enough here to blow up a town with.”
Mrs. Pongrácz nodded. “In the next field there’s a Red Battery. The
Czechs in the vineyard are shelling it.”
Beyond, above the shingled roof of the manor-house, two morose old firs
rose towards heaven, their lowest branches touching the young grass. The
house with its pillars reminded me of the old garden in Algyest which
was my childhood’s delight. But here the soldiers had trampled down the
grass of the lawn, and the heavy munition waggons had cut deep ruts in
the road. Near the gate where the soldiers were, crumpled paper and
broken bottles were lying about. But behind the house, on the other
side, the garden was practically untouched, and amidst the young
awakening of Spring it was beautiful in its wild tangle of growth.
A door opened and an old lady came towards us. She had scarcely looked
at me when she said: “You did well, child, to come to me.”
She had scarcely looked at me! This was Hungary indeed—the old,
hospitable Hungary which to-day is forbidden by the immigrants!...
“Anyone receiving a visitor in his house will be summoned before the
Revolutionary Tribunal....”
The overgrown garden peeped in through the grated window; the trees were
covered with moss, and old stone seats lined the path. Here was peace.
The path was over-run with grass and my feet left no mark on it. I can
stop here, even I to whom rest has been so long denied. No search will
be made for me here, and I shall be able to sleep at night. There will
be no knockings at my window, my dreams will not be haunted by the sound
of cartwheels, the ringing of bells, the tramping of feet....
* * * * *
Szügy, _April 28th_.
The sun shone into the room; its rays rested on the old furniture and
travelled on with soundless steps. Mrs. Beniczky, who was sitting at the
writing table, turned now and then towards me and spoke in a low voice,
cautiously, for listening ears are everywhere. She inquired about my
family, for she had known the Földvárys in other days. My answers became
more and more confused. Later on she began to talk of the
Counter-revolution and mentioned my name, my real name, spoke of me, of
my real self. The blood rushed to my face: she must have thought I had
not heard her, for she repeated her question: “Do you know what happened
to Cécile Tormay? My daughter met her last winter.”
“They say she has escaped to Switzerland....” How ashamed of myself I
felt! I had stolen into this house under a false name, with false
credentials. I had asked my hostess for shelter, though I knew it meant
danger to her. I hated myself, and it was on the tip of my tongue to
tell her the truth. Oh, why could she not see that I was deceiving her,
she who received me with the words: “You have done well, child, to come
to me.”
We were three at dinner: a visitor had come from Balassagyarmat to see
Mrs. Beniczky. We talked of books, and the guest, who had no more notion
of my identity than our hostess, mentioned _The Old House_.
“What has happened to Cécile Tormay? I am told there is a warrant out
against her.”
It was fortunate that I was sitting with my back to the light. Again I
stuttered something about Switzerland. As if speaking to herself, Mrs.
Beniczky said: “But why did she not come here? I would have hidden her
so that nobody could have found her.”
What a burden of self-reproach these words lifted from my conscience;
they told me that it was not entirely by favour of an assumed name, but
to some extent for my own sake, that I was received here.
* * * * *
_April 29th._
This morning the garden beyond the two tall firs was deliciously quiet:
the trees and shrubs seem to exclude everything that makes life vile and
terrible.
Later in the day one of the maids overheard some soldiers talking near
the pump. Somewhere in the neighbourhood a priest has been arrested and
they are going to execute him because a red, white and green flag has
been found in his possession. To the Revolutionary Tribunal with him who
treasures a Hungarian flag! The ‘Cabinet’ has ordered that every flag,
with the exception of red or black ones, must be given up. Poor
Hungarian flag! Between the black and yellow of the Austrian and the red
of the Bolsheviks, fate has granted it scarcely an interlude in which to
float freely over a free people in a free country. Henceforth the
national flag is proscribed in the land of the Hungarian nation.
The soldiers went on to talk of other things. One whispered: “Have you
heard that Comrade Számuelly is hanging people in Hajdúszoboszló?...”
Reality has penetrated the garden with all its hideousness. Trees and
shrubs can keep it out no longer. Death to everything that is Hungarian!
In the county of the noble Hajdú, the Jewish Dictatorship, in flight
before the Roumanians, is hanging people—Hungarians. From General
Headquarters Comrade Böhm is driving our people to the slaughter-house.
It is said that the pavements of the capital are drenched with rivers of
blood. At night there are frequent splashes in the Danube between Buda
and Pest. People disappear and never return. The gaols are crowded.
Early risers find pools of blood on the chain bridge, with a crushed hat
beside them. Who has been murdered? Who are the murderers? There is no
answer, but the blood and the news spread.
* * * * *
_April 30th._
The blossoming plum-trees stood like brides in the grass: whenever the
breeze rose their white veils fluttered. Time was marked only by the
shadow of a slender tree which swept like a giant clock-hand over the
lawn and disappeared. Evening fell.
On the main road a soldier on horseback came slowly into sight. He wore
the gay hussar’s cap of olden times and his dolman swung on his shoulder
with the paces of his horse. He looked as if he had stepped out of a
picture-book of the past into a strange world of new soldiers with
Soviet caps. A Hungarian hussar, a bugler! Remote from the present as
his appearance was, the sound of his bugle seemed even more to belong to
the past, and the cool evening resounded with the ancient call—a call
composed by Haydn, a solemn call: ‘To prayer.’ The music spread and the
forbidden call echoed through the village.
In front of the gate the hands of the Red soldiers went instinctively to
their caps. But they stopped halfway, for all prayer is forbidden. On
the other side of the road the political delegate to this front, the
little Jew Katz, was walking about in patent leather boots. Suddenly he
recognised the tune of the bugle call, and his face became distorted
with rage. He ran angrily towards the bugler. The soldiers looked down
as though to avoid the Syrian eye of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
[Illustration:
GEORGE LUKÁCS _alias_ LÖVINGER.
ASSISTANT COMMISSARY FOR FOOD.
]
For some time after silence had been restored and the dust had settled
down I stood there, waiting. Nowadays one is always waiting. How many
things have failed to come! The ultimatum of the Entente, the French
army from Marseilles, British relief troops, the opposition Government
in Fiume, counter-revolutions, regiments of officers attacking from
beyond the frontiers, relieving Szekler battalions.... And yet it was
good to hope: it helped one to live. But these are things of the past.
Now it is only the Rumanians who are coming, and Számuelly is having
people hanged....
The night was long and restless. I put out the candle for economy’s sake
and for hours lay motionless in the dark. Wherever my thoughts strayed
they encountered filth and blood.
Then suddenly, out there in the spring night, a nightingale began to
sing. I groped my way through the dark room and opened the window. You
little artist, the only artist who may practise his art freely in this
sad country to-day! What was it I read in the newspaper this morning?
“Order ... National Council for Intellectual Production.... The
publication of intellectual products is exclusively in the hands of the
National Council....” Art is the vehicle which conveys to us the eternal
mystery of the universe. Art is faith wrought into the visible. Art is
an aristocracy. Art has precursors, and woe to him who attempts to limit
its expanse with shackles. He kills thought, he strikes the image of God
as it were in the eye.
Those who have adopted the precepts of Karl Marx speak to-day of ‘party
art,’ ‘mass art,’ and ‘co-operatives of spiritual production.’ What
perversely wicked fools are these people whose leader claims to be an
author and yet kills literature in Hungary! George Lukacs-Lowinger, the
hydrocephalic little Jewish philosopher, son of a millionaire banker,
who became a Proletarian apostle through the influence of his Bolshevik
wife. As Deputy Educational Commissary of the Soviet he had the book and
music shops closed down, and after having thus stopped all literary life
and effort, he invented ‘the literary register’! He discovered that
talent had to be classified, and that each class had to be shut up in a
separate drawer, like the goods in a grocer’s shop. He therefore decreed
that writers were to be divided into three classes, and that the
question as to which class a writer belonged was to be decided by a
special Directorate. The authors are to receive monthly salaries
according to the class to which they are allotted, and for this salary
they have to write. They have no other source of income, but the fixed
salary is paid to them whatever they produce, so long as it is in
accordance with the interests of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and
Class War. Needless to say, the Communist poets all belong to the
highest class.
* * * * *
_May 1st._
Early this morning the sounds of a Gypsy band came from the village,
playing the Internationale; thus I realised that this was May Day.
Strict orders have been issued that the village is to be draped in red.
A red flag must be hoisted on the town hall, and red ribbons are to
float from the windows of the cottages.
The Gypsy band came up to the house and played on the terrace, and the
soldiers sang. Mrs. Beniczky and I withdrew to the bottom of the garden.
Everything has been commandeered by the Reds: a roast is preparing for
them in the kitchen, and other dishes were in process of making.
To-night there is going to be a ball. “Two balls,” said the chambermaid,
“because we Proletarians refuse to dance with the peasant girls.”
Once upon a time May Day was the day of youth, the day of festive
excursions for little sempstresses, students, apprentices and children.
Then it became the day of manifestations, and, later, of threats. The
new saviours of the world promised the millenium for this day. On a
blood-soaked land the blood-maddened masses are streaming towards the
final battle which is to bring them an utterly unattainable victory. Red
flags unfurled in a storm of blood are floating under a sky painted red
by incendiary fires.
The first of May has been selected by the Communists for the birthday of
the world-revolution. Lenin’s messages are being scattered broadcast.
Moscow has sent its propaganda gold. And the Dictators of the
Proletariat are offering their slaves the scent of blood, so that this
May shall be their victory.
In Budapest preparations for this festival have been going on for weeks.
They hoped to celebrate it with a victory for the Red arms, but for
victory they have had to substitute shams. The further the Red army has
been forced to retire in the East, the louder they proclaim their Red
May.
_Panem et circenses!_ There is no bread, the capital faints for lack of
food, so let there be a circus for the people. The last rags are falling
from the backs of the destitute millions, so let the town be garbed in
red. Entire houses are covered with it; bridge-heads, terraces, walls;
even the electric trams have been painted blood-red. The Revolutionary
Cabinet has exchanged thirty millions’ worth of cattle in Vienna for the
red decorations of starving Budapest. The programme of the festivities
is so long that the newspapers have no space to report the defeats on
the Eastern front.
There are meetings and processions everywhere; everybody has to join in;
everybody has to decorate his house; otherwise.... May, Spring, glorious
feast of freedom, he who dares to remain indifferent to these will be
summoned before a Revolutionary Tribunal.
The entire capital has turned red, and on the red background gigantic
white plaster statues have been set. On the drill ground a red-covered
coffin, two stories high and forty-five yards long, has been erected to
the memory of Martinovics, to the leader of the peasant rising, Dózsa,
to Charles Liebknecht of Spartacist fame, and to Rosa Luxemburg.
The entrance of the tunnel under the castle hill in Buda is draped in
red, and plaster statues of Soviet soldiers with terrifying faces and
with rifles raised ready to strike are standing beside it. The naked red
giant, hammer in hand, of ‘The People’s Voice’ is displayed at the
street corner: “Death to the bourgeois!”
The memorial of our millenary is also covered with red. Over the statue
of Arpád, the conqueror, which has been covered with planks, a plaster
statue of Marx has been erected. In front of the House of Parliament,
like a blood-covered giant bladder, is a red globe. Andrássy’s statue
has been covered by a red Greek temple, and there again, ten yards high,
are the heads of Marx, Lenin, Liebknecht, Engels and Rosa Luxemburg.
Plaster, plaster, red cloth (made of paper), red columns, red
flag-staffs and flags, wreaths, five-pointed Soviet stars. A sickening
red disguise over the deadly pallor of the Hungarian capital.
A red rag rouses a thirst for blood in a frenzied bull. What is it they
want, there, on the banks of the Danube? What is it all for? Is it a
sudden madness, or is it the accomplishment of the frightful prophecy of
the Apocalypse?
I took up my Bible. The prophecy and its realisation stood out in red
letters before my eyes. But a few days later in the prophecy there comes
one on a white horse, dressed in white linen. And the white one
vanquishes the red.
* * * * *
_May 2nd._
News has just reached us: the Red army has retired before the Rumanians
and has crossed the Tisza. The Serbians have occupied Hódmezövásárhely.
The Czechs have occupied Miskolcz and are attacking in two sectors. The
population is helping them and there is no resistance; the Reds are in
flight. What a terrible position is ours: the invaders fill us with
horror, and yet we await them eagerly: we look to assassins to save us
from our hangman. And while we bite our lips in helpless anguish our
sufferings are unheeded by humanity, which is concerned only with the
fact that the Soviet Republic protects foreigners. The Republic of
course has decreed that its agents must behave with the greatest
courtesy to foreigners, and it has established an ‘Office for the
protection of Aliens.’ Is there not a single foreigner who thinks of
asking his own people for help for us, who did not intern them during
the war and are now persecuted slaves in our own country?
In past centuries the Rumanians and Serbs fled to us for asylum against
their own tyrants, and to us also came the wandering Jew. But now they
are all working together to wipe us from the face of the earth. Yet we
shared with them everything we had, and they readily received our
protection. It is said that only a misguided fraction of the Jews is
active in the destruction of Hungary. If that be so, why do not the Jews
who represent Jewry in London, in New York, and at the Paris Peace
Conference disown and brand their tyrant co-religionists in Hungary? Why
do they not repudiate all community with them? Why do they not protest
against the assaults committed by men of their race?
* * * * *
A storm is coming, and its breath bends the trees of the garden. The
branches of the old firs rise and fall over the lawn like slime-covered
oars on a turbulent lake. The leaves of the aspen are thrust apart by
the wind as if it were blowing aside the hair from a face walking
against the storm. The willow bends as if it were gathering flowers in
the grass. The guns thunder near Örhalom. The wind is rising, and
already it is roaring like furious giant hounds barking at the setting
sun.
The soldiers say that the Czechs are going to attack to-night.
[Illustration:
THE RED MAY DAY IN BUDAPEST.
]