_November 8th._
The wind chases the clouds above the Danube. It whistles down the
chimneys. The streets of Buda shiver between the houses.
The tram to our hills was practically empty. Everybody has come to town
and the houses stand abandoned. The strokes of axes resound in the woods,
and trembling townspeople steal scraps of wood along the roadside. Shabby
clerks, teachers, women pick up brushwood in the thickets. Now and then a
shot is heard from the hills. Thousands of disbanded soldiers have taken
their rifles with them and are shooting game freely all over the country.
The woods are crowded with poachers. Blood-stains. A rotting carcase.
Hungary’s famous game is on the verge of extinction.
I reached our villa and walked round the abandoned house. It has not yet
been broken into. The wind was twisting the dead leaves along the road
into ropes. There was a dry rattle everywhere, and the branches of the
bare trees knocked together in the moving air. An old woman walked down
the road and her thin silken skirt fluttered in the wind. She must have
known better days, and now she carried firewood on her back. There is no
wood to be got in town. What will happen in winter? We shall freeze....
Coming back I bought a newspaper through the tram window. Many hands were
stretched out. Opposite me a young ensign bought one too. The torn off
insignia of his rank had left their mark on the collar of his uniform.
Well disposed officers have ceased to wear uniforms. It has become a
livery of shame, and is worn only by those who have nothing else to wear.
This one looked like one of that category. Only deserters, civilians, and
those who shirked the war now wear uniforms.
I began to read the midday paper. Belgrade.... Everything around me
disappeared. Through the printed letters of the paper I saw the Serbian
town as I had known it long ago. The Danube was rolling past the wharf,
there was the high fort, once Hunyadi’s impregnable Hungarian stronghold,
the Konak; and between the trees beyond the town the small convent where,
under the oil-painted planks of the floor, without any monument, the
massacred bodies of the last Obrenovic and his mutilated Serbian queen,
Draga, lie. Then I thought of the garden of Topcider and its oriental
little Kiosk where Serbian Gypsies used to fiddle and sing. Officers,
in brilliant uniforms after the Russian pattern, took their afternoon
substitute for tea at small round tables, eating onions with bread. Some
of them had the ribbon of an Order on their chest. A Serbian explained to
me proudly that this Order was bestowed only on those who had taken an
active part in the events that cleared the road to the throne for Peter
Karageorgevic.
Herds of cattle were driven through the ill-paved streets. Manure, dirt,
bugs, rubbish, and flies—big, shiny, blue flies. The Skupstina.... When
I saw that I could not help thinking of Hungary’s house of Parliament.
The two buildings proclaimed both the past and the culture of the two
peoples. Ours is a Gothic blossom, with its roots in the Danube, the
bed of which is the grave of our first conqueror, Attila, who received
tribute from Rome and Byzantium, and sleeps there his sleep of fifteen
hundred years. When I saw the Serbian Parliament it was a building like a
stable, with wooden benches in it and the walls covered with red, white
and blue stuff. Its air was reeking with the scent of onions and sheep,
while the windows were obscured with fly marks.
Since I had been there this small Balkan town must have suffered much.
The soldiers of Mackensen and Kövess had passed victoriously over its
ruins. Now Károlyi and Jászi, with the delegates of the Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Council, go there a-begging.
Why did they go there? Why just there? The jerking of the wheels of the
tram seemed to repeat rhythmically “Why just there, why just there....”
According to the official news the French general was haughty and
ruthless. He took Károlyi’s memorandum, turned his back on him, and
banged the door....
This memorandum reveals the unsavoury truth when it complains that within
twenty-four hours after assuming power Károlyi had promised to the Allies
to lay down arms at once, but his offer had been prevented by the common
High Command from reaching its destination. The High Command had isolated
Hungary from the Allied powers, and had cut the telephone wires. It
had charged General Weber to negotiate in the name of the old Monarchy
with General Diaz, the Italian Commander-in-Chief. Károlyi’s memorandum
protested against this because “nobody but the delegates of the Hungarian
people are entitled to negotiate for independent Hungary. This is the
reason for our appearance,” ended this disgraceful document.
So it was nobody who called for them, nobody who sent these people who
claim to be the representatives of the Hungarian people. Károlyi the
gambler gambles in Belgrade. He plays an iniquitous game. He cheats for
his own pocket while his own country loses.
The newspaper was executing a wild dance in my hands while I read the
memorandum. Surely men have never written anything like this about their
own country. They go to ask for an armistice and accuse us before our
enemies. “We oppressed the nationalities, we were tyrants....” I felt as
if something had been poured down my throat which it was impossible to
swallow. I choked for a time, and my blood was beating a mad tattoo at
the sides of my head. He who wrote that lied in hatred, while those who
transmitted it were cretins or criminals.
In his answer to the memorandum the French general was insulting and
contemptuous. The shame of it all! They are slighted and we bear the
disgrace. Every word of Franchet d’Esperay was a slap in the face to
Károlyi and his fellows. What unfathomable contempt must have been felt
by this old Norman nobleman, this patriotic soldier, for Károlyi and his
Bolshevick Internationalist companions!
Workers’ Council.... Soldiers’ Council....
He looked sternly at the Semitic features of Jászi and the faun-like face
of Hatvany as he said:
“You only represent the Hungarian race and not the Hungarian people.”
Then he answered the clumsy, cunning sentence of the memorandum, sprung
from the brain of some journalistic fantast: “From the first of November
Hungary ceases to be a belligerent and becomes a neutral country.”
“The Hungarians have fought side by side with the Germans and with the
Germans they will suffer and pay.”
An answer to those who shouted in Parliament over dying Hungary “we are
friends of the Entente,” an answer to Károlyi, who in the interest of his
personal ascendency intrigued with Prague, Bukarest and Belgrade.
“The Czechs, Slovakians, Roumanians and Yugo-Slavs are the enemies of
Hungary, and I have only to give the order and you will be destroyed.”
I forced my eyes to overcome my shame and anger, and read on.
Followed the conditions of the armistice.... Not conditions, but orders
born of revenge and hatred dictated by the commander of an armed force to
the self-appointed, obtruding envoys of a disarmed people.
Horrible nightmare.... The Hungarian government has to evacuate huge
territories in the east and in the south. Hungarian soil must be
delivered over to the Balkan forces. We must surrender from the Szamos to
the Maros-Tisza line, from the Danube to the Sloveno-Croatian frontier,
that which has been ours for a thousand years.
Eighteen points.... Eighteen blows in the face of the nation. After this
Hungary is a country no longer, she is a surrounded quarry thrown to the
fury of the pack. The Kill....
Poor country of mine, poor countrymen....
Suddenly I saw the letters no more: something had covered them, as the
stones at the bottom of a brook are rendered indistinct by the waves
above. I wiped my eyes and looked up. Had others read it too? The little
ensign had. He was weeping silently. He sat there with his head bowed,
crushing the newspaper in his fist. I looked round. Faces had changed
since I had read the paper. The others had read it too. Strangers began
to talk to each other excitedly:—“I always told you so, Károlyi alone
could bring us a good peace. He got it in two days. It was said that he
alone could save us....”
For an instant the misguided people seemed to have regained their
consciences. Terrified disappointment, bitter complaints filled the car.
Most of them cursed the French general furiously, and remarks of a new
kind were heard about Károlyi too. Something had become clear.... Or did
I only see my own views in the eyes of the others?
“It isn’t all that,” said a gentleman to his neighbour; “we must not
judge hastily.” And he read aloud that the delegates of the government
had made the signing of the armistice conditional. These conditions were
set out in a dispatch which was forwarded through Franchet d’Esperay to
Paris. “It is clear,” the gentleman said, “that the government will only
sign the armistice if the Entente powers guarantee the old frontiers
of Hungary till the conclusion of peace. Károlyi will manage the peace
treaty all right. His confidential friends say that he can carry
everything before him in Paris. He will get peace in six weeks.”
The exhausted people clung to these words. The protesting telegram
had destroyed the finality of the catastrophe.... And those who a few
minutes ago had spoken desperately, sent their tired souls to sleep
with self-deceiving optimism. They became quiet. They crowded together
and looked out of the window. A woman yawned aloud. Behind my back they
talked of the high prices: potatoes had gone up again....
When I came home my mother was sitting in the little green room near the
window. She sat passively in the twilight, she who was always busy with
something. When the door opened she turned towards me and raised her head
slightly to be kissed. I saw in the twilight her kind blue eyes, which,
in spite of years, had retained their youth and lustre. They now looked
at me in indescribable grief. A newspaper lay on the table.
“Have you read it?” I asked.
“I have....”
* * * * *
_November 9th._
Huge white posters have appeared on the walls. All along the streets
everything is covered with them. They are posted on the shop windows, on
the windows of the coffee-houses. They appear between the announcements
of the kinematographs in the advertisement columns. Not orders, not
regulations, not proclamations: from far away I could see it, one word at
the top of them all: A BALLAD.
It is an old, sweet word, one which seems to come from olden days
bringing a message to the new: a ballad.... I scanned one of the posters,
but was unable to decipher the smaller words. I had to cross the road.
While doing so I pondered: will this ballad contain that which we are
waiting for, the cry of Hungary’s agony? The rebelling voice of our
sufferings? Is it an old ballad, or one of the later ones? Or is it by
some misled poet who has helped to burn his ancestor’s soil and had aided
the band of Jews to make the revolution? Has the erring soul returned
to the fold of his race and does he give voice to the tortures of the
betrayed Hungarian land into which Balkan robbers are already setting
their teeth? Or is it by one who could shape into our language the
sufferings of homeless Dante, who could put into verse the moaning of the
dread storm that rages over the Great Plain?
Not they, it is not Hungarians who speak. The sickly verses of one Renée
Erdös polluted the air, plastered up by the government all over the town.
“And he went to Belgrade, good Michael Karolyi
sad Michael Karolyi
great Michael Karolyi.”
And this was stuck up on every house in Budapest. What a childish game!
The ballad is meant to create sympathy for Michael Károlyi, so that anger
against him shall not rise in people’s hearts; it attempts to transfer
to him the pity that the nation should feel for itself. And as though by
a word of command, the whole press of Budapest is writing in the same
strain. The newspapers practically hide the conditions of the armistice
and enlarge on the rude contempt of the French general. In their columns
Károlyi has became a martyr who has suffered for the nation.
The people in the street stopped and read the ballad, and now and then
somebody said: “Poor Michael Károlyi!” But even while this was being said
bitter news spread over the town, news which none could stop. The truth
about the Belgrade meeting has filtered through, and already people are
clenching their fists.
Franchet d’Esperay had come to the meeting in an aeroplane from Salonika.
He stationed a guard of honour in front of his hotel. He wore full dress
uniform, with all his decorations, and thus received those whom he
believed to be the envoys of Hungary. Michael Károlyi and his friends
appeared in shooting-jackets, breeches, gaiters: as if they were out for
a holiday. The general glared in astonishment at the motley company.
He became cold and contemptuous, shook hands with nobody, and folded
his arms over his chest. Astonished at first, he became ironical as he
listened to Károlyi’s faulty speech. After taking possession of the
accusing memorandum (which had been edited by Jászi) he ranged the
company within the light of his lamp and looked attentively at one after
the other.
“_Vous êtes Juif?_” he asked Hatvany; then looking at Jászi and Károlyi,
he said, “You are Jews, too?”
His face showed undisguised disgust when Károlyi introduced to him, as
an achievement of the revolution, the delegates of the Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Council. He pointed at the collar of Csernyák, the delegate
of the Soldiers’ Council, whence the insignia of rank had been removed:
“_Vous êtes tombés si bas?_” Then, instead of bowing, he threw his head
back haughtily, turned on his heel, and left them. He dined with his
officers, and did not invite the delegation, though the table had been
laid for them.
The self-delegated men looked at each other in dismay. How were they to
report this to the befooled, betrayed country, which had been rocked to
sleep for months by the recital of Károlyi’s connections with the Allies,
and the belief of a good peace?... In their fear they accused each other,
and one of them said to Károlyi: “In Budapest you were feasted like a
demi-god, and here you are treated like a dog....”
Károlyi and his friends went without dinner that day in Belgrade, and
after his dinner General Franchet d’Esperay put on his field uniform and
with hard words handed the delegation the terrible, degrading conditions
of the armistice.
This happened in Belgrade on the 7th of November. One day later,
yesterday evening, the members of the government went solemnly to the
railway station to accord a triumphant welcome to the delegation.
Countess Károlyi, Mrs. Jászi and other “revolutionary ladies” (as they
like to be styled) were there too. But the festal crowd waited in vain.
Károlyi and his following dared not face them.... They had stopped the
special train at a little side-station, got out quietly, and dispersed in
the ill-lit streets.
It was through a back-door that they brought their shame from Belgrade
into the betrayed town.
* * * * *
_November 10th._
A leaden gray rain is falling. From the wall of the old neglected house
opposite a big piece of plaster is washed off and falls with a splash
into the street, where pieces of it fly in all directions. It is Sunday.
Nobody passes along the street. Only the rain drives before the window.
It comes and goes again, and writes something on the panes.
The republican party has called a mass meeting for this afternoon.
Organised labour and organising good-for-nothings, the Soldiers’ Council,
the officers, the non-commissioned officers ... meetings everywhere.
And everywhere discourses on the supremacy of the people, its rights,
democracy, independence and freedom. But no mention is made of Belgrade.
There is no protest meeting or demonstration against the conditions of
the armistice. With its cunning lies the faithful, servile press of
Károlyi has hoodwinked the crowd again. The town hides the shame of
Belgrade in silence, as if it were not its concern, as if it had lost all
self-respect. The crowd, stupid and good-tempered, continues on the road
which it trod yesterday. Blind flocks of sheep and herds of blinkered
oxen, thoughtless and sightless masses, following their degraded leader
towards the precipice. They are going, and why does he delay who is to
bring salvation?
The rain writes ghostly characters on my window as well as on the panes
of the house opposite. That is all; nothing else happens.
Nothing? I must be mad to write such a thing. Does not every day bring
with it the collapse of something which had always existed, ever since I
was born, and before that, long before that?... It is incomprehensible.
One reads only the news, and when one has read that it seems impossible,
and one half expects somebody will laugh, or a voice will tell us that it
is not true and that everything is really as it used to be. Yet we wait
in vain.... And again we believe that nothing will happen.
Meanwhile loyal Bavaria has driven King Louis out of the country. The
Soldiers’ and Workers’ Council in Saxony has made a proclamation to the
people: “The King has been deprived of his throne, the Wettin dynasty has
ceased to exist.” Baden has expelled its ruler, and the Grand Duke of
Hesse is a prisoner of the mob. Wurtemburg, Brunswick, Weimar.... Ancient
thrones, legendary old courts, centres of culture, art-loving little
residences, all collapse in a few minutes. It is as if some giant Hatred
roams abroad, demolishing everything it finds standing, from east to west.
All the faithful German princes have lost their thrones. The only one
who still wears a crown is the one who has shown himself faithless—the
Hohenzollern down there in Roumania. And the Kaiser has fled to Holland
from his unhappy Empire.
Kaiser Wilhelm has resigned his throne! As the news spreads this fresh
token of the mutability of human affairs causes a shudder even in those
who worked for it with hatred and received it with shouts of triumph.
Since Napoleon, nobody has been so violently hated on this globe as he.
Doubtless this will be the measure of his importance in history. It will
judge his power by the fact that against Napoleon England had allied only
a fraction of Europe, while against the Hohenzollern the whole world was
forced to rise in arms.
The cause of the two Emperors’ downfall is the same. Napoleon wanted to
make France the first power of the world, and Kaiser Wilhelm dreamt the
same dream for the German Empire. Neither of them could stop half-way.
Is it a Saint Helena that fate has in store for Kaiser Wilhelm? Will
the Dutch castle that has received him turn out to be a replica of the
_Bellerophon_?
The Kaiser was a friend of the Hungarians. Once in the royal castle of
Buda he proposed the health of the Hungarian nation. Since the rule of
the Hapsburgs no crowned head has ever spoken to us like that. His speech
was printed in school books, the children learned it by heart, and the
memory of the Kaiser stayed with us. But he never came again to our
midst. During the war he went to Vienna, to Sophia and to Constantinople.
He never stopped at Budapest. And while the Hungarian people waited for
him whose soldiers had bled with ours at three gates of our country, he
was forced to bear in mind the jealousy of Vienna. His picture was in
the shop-windows, Budapest had named its finest boulevard after him, the
colours of his Empire floated everywhere and if his train touched the
country’s soil the newspapers wrote in his homage.
In 1916 Tisza went to the German General Headquarters. The Roumanians
had just invaded Transylvania and he asked for troops and help for his
hard-pressed country.
“Will the Hungarians be grateful for it?” asked the Kaiser.
“We shall be grateful,” answered Stephen Tisza.
They have torn the contract of our alliance, but a common misfortune
can write a more permanent alliance than any human hand. Marshal Foch’s
document stating the conditions of the armistice with Germany is the twin
of the ruthless writing of Belgrade. Wilson’s mask has fallen and the
victors beggar us and let loose upon us the blood-stained cloud which
comes from the East to cover the despair of betrayed peoples.
On this cloud obscure strangers steal over the Russian border into the
heart of Europe and join with those whose features resemble theirs.
And there are such in Paris, in London, and in New York too.... They
have invaded the greater half of Europe. In Russia Trotski-Bronstein,
Krassin-Goldgelb, Litvinoff-Finkelstein, Radek and Joffe are
all-powerful. In Munich Kurt Eisner is the master and president of the
Republic. In Berlin Beerfeld is at the head of the Soldiers’ Council and
Hirsch at the Workmens’. In Vienna the power is in the hands of Renner,
Adler, Deutsch and Bauer. And in Budapest....
Is this all accidental?
Carrion-crows on dying nations.... They hack out the eyes that still see,
they pierce the still throbbing hearts with their beaks, tear shreds of
flesh from the convulsed members. And nowhere does anyone appear to drive
them away.
Nothing happens.... Silently, silently, like speechless despair, the rain
beats at my window.
* * * * *
_November 11th._
I might have known that it would end like this!
Károlyi and his government decided yesterday afternoon that they would
accept the Belgrade conditions without alterations.... The French Premier
did not even deign to answer their protesting telegrams. He looked
over their heads and would not speak to them. Instead he sent direct
instructions to Franchet d’Esperay: “I request you to treat with Count
Károlyi military questions only, to the exclusion of all other matters.
This is final. Clemenceau.”
In the old palace of the Prime Minister, up there in the castle of Buda,
the cabinet met in council. At first Károlyi was greatly excited, then,
tired of listening to the others, he stretched his long legs, plunged
his hands into his pockets, and with his head bowed on his chest stared
into a corner where nothing was going on. The ministers of his party
were nervous. The socialist and radical ministers were cool. Linder is a
minister no more. He was perpetually drunk. Brandy bottles stood on his
ministerial writing-table and in his ante-room sailors were constantly
drinking. The government has relieved him and put Lieutenant Colonel
Bartha into his place. But “to make sure of Linder’s valuable services
for the future” he was invited to go to Belgrade and sign the conditions
of the armistice in the name of the Hungarian authorities....
It all looks as if it were a systematical, devilish conspiracy.
Apparently they want to degrade us as much as possible so as to make it
easier for them to tread on us. After the delegation in shooting jackets,
a dipsomaniac lieutenant goes to Belgrade, and with his watery eyes and
alcoholic breath represents Hungary before the haughty French General.
And while Linder was preparing for his journey, Károlyi made a speech at
the National Council, meant to encourage and reassure those who wanted to
rob Hungarian territory.
The Serbian troops have crossed the frontier and are advancing rapidly
into the country. On their national holiday the Czechs have decided to
occupy all counties to the possession of which they aspire. The Czech
troops have started and are fast overrunning the country.... Their
plan is to occupy Pressburg and Upper Hungary. This means seventeen to
nineteen counties. The situation on the Roumanian side is serious too.
Roumania has decided to order a general mobilisation.... “In the full
knowledge of our physical inability and of the right of our cause,”
Károlyi finally declared, “we can only rely on justice. Consequently
I propose that we sign the treaty of armistice with General Franchet
d’Esperay, _and when we have signed it, every invasion becomes simply an
act of violence. Whoever invades us, we shall protest, raise our warning
voice, and appeal to the judgment of the civilised world; but we shall
offer no armed opposition_, because we want, and are going to stand by,
the conditions of the armistice.”
The so-called Prime Minister of Hungary, from the very heart of Hungary,
promises to our little neighbours, when they start on their plundering
expeditions, that if they come they shall not be interfered with, that
they will meet no armed opposition. And so Michael Károlyi, in the
hearing of the National Council and of the united Cabinet, calls in the
Serbians, Roumanians and Czechs.
With trembling lips I read the words of this shameful speech. What does
Michael Károlyi get for this infamous job?... It is but two hundred years
since his ancestor Alexander Károlyi received from the Emperor of Austria
the domains of Erdöd, Huszt, Tarcalt and Marosvásárhely, at the valuation
of fifty thousand pieces of gold, and the crown of a count (on to which
the herald painter at Vienna painted by mistake two more pearls than the
other Hungarian counts wear) for his betrayal of Rákoczi, the Hungarian
champion. The crown of the Counts Károlyi has eleven pearls. Was it for
those two pearls that the democratic Károlyi was haughtier than any man
of his rank? He wore them and wears them to this day, when he is making
a republic. He wears the rank bestowed on him by the Hapsburgs, while
he deprives the Hapsburgs of theirs. He insists on being called the
Right Honourable Count, and that his wife be called the Right Honourable
Countess, while those who are the source of his title are called in his
press Charles Hapsburg and Joseph Hapsburg! He uses the King’s special
train, his motor-car, and at the opera sits with his wife in the royal
box. He intends to occupy the royal castle too. One day after dinner, in
the intimacy of his family, smoking his cigar, he said casually: “I’ll
make the King resign.” But his two advisers, Kéri and Jászi, advised him
that this should not be done by him or by the government. The Hungarian
educated classes were attached to the crown and the peasantry was loyal
to the King.
I met an old acquaintance this afternoon. It was he who reported to
me this opinion of Károlyi’s Councillors. It was told to him by quite
reliable people. Paul Kéri said: “One never knows. Let the odium of
it be attached to someone else. We had the German Alliance broken by
some outsider; let us get the resignation of the King effected by other
people. The most suitable people would be the magnates. If it suits the
people, it is a good card in our hand that even the counts don’t want the
King. If they don’t like it, let the nobility pay for it....”
“They won’t find anybody to do it,” I said, as we walked side by side
through the crowded street.
“You may be right,” my companion replied, shrugging his lean shoulders.
“I hear that Károlyi’s negotiations have all failed. And yet, the
matter becomes urgent for him. They want to hurry here too. They envy
the priority of Berlin and Vienna. Do you know that when the news of
the German events reached the Austrian National Council, it at once
decided for the republic, and the Emperor Charles yesterday signed his
resignation in Schönbrunn?”
“No.... I did not know....”
“Under the influence of this event Károlyi’s government admitted that it
did not intend to wait for the constitutional assembly to decide on the
form the Constitution should take. ‘Companion’ Bokányi abolished Kingship
on the day of the revolution.... He does not want it, nor does Kunfi, nor
Pogány. Baron Hatvany, Jászi and Paul Kéri are all against it; in short,
Kingship has to go.... They made Károlyi sign a declaration for form’s
sake, but that does not count. But if it interests you, let us go to the
editorial office of the _Pesti Naplo_ where we can read all about it.”
In the lighted window, among the latest news, there it was, the text
of the proclamation: “The Hungarian National Council has addressed a
solemn request to the National Councils formed in the various towns and
communes, that they should decide at once whether they agree with the
decision of the Hungarian National Council that the future form of the
Hungarian state be that of a Republic. A rapid decision and immediate
answer are requested.”
I felt the same inexpressible disgust that I always feel when I read the
writings of the new power. “An immediate answer is requested ...” as if
an agent were asking for orders ... “a rapid decision” ... as if it were
an auction of somebody’s old clothes: the crown of St. Stephen and the
traditions of a thousand Hungarian years.
“Don’t let it annoy you,” my companion said bitterly; “it is only a
comedy. It makes no difference what they write, and it’s just the same
whatever the country answers. The secretariat of the Social Democratic
party and the other ‘companions’ have already settled the question. On
November the 16th they are going to proclaim the republic, and Károlyi is
to be President. And we shall say nothing and do nothing.”
“And how long are we going to do nothing?”
“What can one do? I was at the front for forty-four months. I was wounded
three times. I’m ill and I’m tired. And in other places it’s even worse
than here. In Berlin they are shooting in the streets. Officers, loyal
to the Kaiser, and the Red Guards cut each other’s throats in Unter den
Linden. Machine-guns fire from the roofs of the houses. Red sailors have
occupied the imperial palace, and corpses lie between the barricades.
Here, they rarely knock a man down, and they only take his watch once.”
He laughed painfully. “You know I was buried by a shell in my trench.
They had to dig for some time before they found me, and the earth was
heavy. Since then....” Horror showed in his eyes and he shivered. “It’s
no good struggling. We can’t get out. It was all in vain.”
He turned his head away, and we went on side by side for some time
without a word; then he saluted clumsily and turned down a dark little
street. But although he had gone his voice remained with me, and as I
went on I could hear it over and over again; it came towards me, followed
me, kept pace with me: “It’s no good struggling ... we can’t get out ...
it was all in vain....” Those who suffer, those who are cold and hungry,
those who are beggars and cripples, those who had their orders torn from
their chests and the stars from the collars of their uniforms, all think
alike. Those who did the tearing had not seen the war, had stayed at
home, had lived in plenty and got rich; their numbers increased while
ours grew less; they won the war that we lost.
“We are done for, it’s no good struggling.” Is that what I see written
in people’s eyes? Exhaustion and the endless “I’m ill and tired?”... Now
I understand. The best have fallen, and those who have come back are
wounded, though there be no wound on their bodies. Neither generals nor
statesmen can remedy this.
I went home. The staircase was in darkness, the electric light had gone
wrong a few days ago and no workman could be found to repair it; all had
joined the unemployed’s bargaining federation. The front door bell was
out of order too. The electrician who always kept it in order had been
deserted by his men and had to attend to his shop himself.
One has to knock at one’s own door nowadays, for it cannot be left
unbolted. Loafing soldiers pay visits to houses. One hears of nothing but
burglaries.
As I went upstairs impressions of the streets of the decaying town passed
through my mind: the furious struggling crowd of crammed electric trams;
the ‘new rich’ in fur coats; dirty flags, the remains of last month’s
posters on grimy walls; coffee-houses with music within, crude noises and
lewd conversations; people loafing in front of coal merchants’ cellars.
The horror of the foul streets was still with me when I reached my room.
My mother called to me. She was sitting in her room with a shaded lamp on
the table, and on the green velvet table-cloth the kings and queens of a
pack of little patience cards promenaded as if in a field.
“Where have you been?” my mother asked.
“I went to see about the coal.”
“Well?”
I did not want to tell her my visit had been in vain. “I shall have to
go again. I couldn’t settle matters to-day.” I thought of our empty
cellar and of the coal-office, the long queue of waiting people. Scenes
passed before me like the pictures of a kinematograph.... The window of
the _Pesti Naplo_. People were waiting there too.... Big letters, latest
news... Czechs, Roumanians, Serbs, and the names of ancient Hungarian
towns.... People said nothing and craned their necks to see....
Everywhere the same tired faces.... And as if one voice were speaking for
them all: “It is no good struggling ... we can’t get out ... it was all
in vain”.... Yes, it is past the remedy of generals and statesmen....
All the time my mother was looking at me thoughtfully over her patience
cards. She said nothing, asked no questions, but leant forward and
stroked my head. It was unlike her: her tenderness was hardly ever
visible or heard. It was always there, but quietly, underneath. She
rarely showed her feelings, and lived behind a veil of self-control. In
my childhood it was only when I was ill or down-hearted that she showed
her true self, for my sake, not for hers. But lately, now that events
had caused old age to quicken his steps, the veil had been more often
drawn aside. I wanted so much to say something, to thank her for what
was beyond thanks. She stroked my hair.... How soothing it was! Her hand
knew a sweet, tender secret which it revealed only on the brows of her
children when they bent under the weight of sorrow. Dear loving hands!
They can accomplish what neither generals nor statesmen can.
Something I cannot express in words rose within me in that moment.
Was it a foreboding, was it the clue that we were all seeking, was it
a presentiment of something I was to do? I cannot answer, but it was
something that should throw itself before the torrent of destruction,
should raise a dam before the motherland and its women, the faithful, the
prolific, the holders of Hungary’s future.... To protect those who see
things with eyes different from those of generals and statesmen.
A carriage stopped in front of the house. Who could it be? For days I
had seen practically nobody. Social intercourse had almost ceased; one
did not even know what was happening to one’s best friends or where they
were. Everyone took refuge in his own home, and the threads that had
been broken in October had not yet been retied. A knock at the door, the
hinges creaked. Steps in the corridor. It was my friend Countess Raphael
Zichy.
“Do you remember the last time we met? Up in the woods in a fog? And
while we were trying to guess what the future had in store for us the
rebellion had already started in the town.”
“Then it must have been about the 30th of October.”
“Since then everything has collapsed. Is there any force on earth that
could repair the havoc?”
“Nothing ever can be repaired,” said my visitor, pensively. “The evil
always remains; but one can raise something good by its side that will
progress and leave the evil behind it.”
“But is there anybody who can do this? We’re not organised, and everybody
is so despondent and tired. As long as this is so, nothing will ever
happen. It is this that has got to be cured first. I was thinking about
it just before you came: in defeat women are always greater than men. If
they could only be roused and set going they might restore the faith that
everybody seems to have lost.”
“I’m already negotiating with the various Catholic women’s institutions,”
the Countess said, “and I hope to bring about their unity.”
“I don’t want the unity of creeds,” said I; “I want the unity of
Hungarians. The forces of Destruction have united in one camp. All its
apostles work together. Why shouldn’t the forces of Regeneration unite as
well?”
“I’m going to begin where I’m rooted,” answered my guest with an
enigmatic smile, while taking leave. “You’re like all Hungarians. You
want to do everything at once and carry everything before you....”
She was right. She had started to work in the right way.