_December 23rd-24th._
Everyone I have spoken to within the last few days has expressed anger
and disgust over Mackensen’s arrest. Countess Raphael Zichy told me she
met Michael Károlyi accidentally, and told him straight out what she
thought about it.
“It was bound to happen,” he answered cynically, “the worst that can
happen now is that I shall have the reputation of having been the first
ungentlemanly prime minister of Hungary.”
We met again in the Zichy Palace, the same group as last time. We had
intended talking about our women’s organization, but, somehow, we could
not avoid the subject of Mackensen.
“We must write to him in the name of the women!” said I, and there was a
chorus of approval. I was entrusted with the writing of the letter, and
Prince Hohenlohe offered to translate it into German, while the others
promised to collect signatures.
I wrote it the same night: it gave me no trouble, for it was already in
my mind. I repudiated Károlyi’s base deed, scorned it, branded it in the
name of womenkind, and asked the Field Marshal to forgive what had been
done against the will of the nation. We were helpless at present, but the
day would come when Hungary’s people would raise up a statue of him on
the rocks of the Carpathians which he had defended.
My mother was the first to sign my sheet. Then I started for town, and in
the evening brought home with me many signatures. A message was waiting
for me at home to say that Countess Albert Apponyi was going to Fóth,
and as she too had signed the letter, she would take the message of
Hungary’s womanhood to Mackensen for Christmas.
It was little enough, but we had no more to give. The Field Marshal
understood. He read the letter at once and was deeply moved when he
expressed his thanks.
Thus came the eve of Holy Christmas.
Along the pavements grimy heaps of snow were melting. Squashy black mud
covered the streets, the gas lamps flickered palely, and the shops were
closed at an early hour. The trams had stopped. The town was needy and
cold.
When, in accordance with our yearly custom, my mother and I went to spend
the holy evening with my sister Mary, we saw armed drunken soldiers
loafing about the streets. All round us there was firing going on, and
the windows of the houses were in darkness.
Everywhere in Hungary the windows are dark to-day, and there is shooting
among the houses of peaceful people. Only the frontiers, the dangerously
receding frontiers, are quiet under the wintry sky. Over the snow-covered
fields of Transylvania a Roumanian general is marching on Kolozsvár with
four thousand men. Yesterday his advance guards entered the town of King
Matthias Corvinus. I wept when I heard it....
The French Lieut.-Colonel Vyx has sent another memorandum. He has
advanced the Entente’s line of demarcation once more, and has now pushed
it beyond Pressburg, Kassa, Kolozsvár, beyond many lovely Hungarian
towns. And the Czechs and Serbians are still advancing....
Never has Hungary known a sadder Christmas than this one. There are no
lights on our Christmas tree, it has been turned into a gallows tree and
bound to it stands our generation, wounded more deeply than any Hungarian
generation has ever been wounded before.
* * * * *
_Christmas Night._
An icy wind was blowing when my mother and I came home through the
unfriendly streets, and volleys were being fired in the direction of
one of the barracks. We went out and came back amidst the clatter of
firearms, and between the two journeys there was the picture of my
sister’s home, the usual room, the dwarf pine tree, with spluttering,
bad candles, and, on the table, covered with white linen, the children’s
presents. They at least enjoyed it. The little boy thought that his
brother’s patched up rocking horse was new, and that everything was
lovely. Poor children of a poor age, it is as well that they don’t know
what our Christmasses were like!... A hundred candles, a noble, grand
fir tree reaching up to the ceiling. The smell of pure wax mingling with
the perfume of the fir, fresh from the Vág valley, and every wish of the
year was satisfied under that tree. Beyond that, I saw another tree,
then another, and another, many more.... Burning candles and green fir
trees carried me back into the years of the past: an avenue of shining
Christmas trees, the end of which is so far away that in the depth of
its perspective I can see myself quite small. There, far away, I was a
child, like those who now count me among the old. Then all the old folk
were still with me, the dear old ones who stand between us and death when
we start life. There are many of them, many defending rows, so that we
cannot see the end of the road.... As we advance, one after another they
disappear. My two grandmothers, my father.... One defending row after the
other has fallen out, and now only my mother and Uncle Géza, her brother,
stand in front of me.... I am coming to the front myself; like the others
before me, I am hiding the end of the road from the children who are
growing up....
When childhood has passed, the festivities of Christmas are always damped
by the quiet sadness of memories. And this year it is not only the past
of individuals but the past of our country, our people that haunts us.
How lovely Christmas used to be.... Hungary’s Christmas! So naturally
lovely that we did not know....
Christmas bells! When they called to midnight mass their clanging mingled
with the rattle of machine-guns.
* * * * *
_December 25th-30th._
In the good old times the last week of the year used to be one
uninterrupted holiday. This year it is only a horrible part of the
desperate road we have to tread. The news spreads from one to the other:
to-morrow—the day after to-morrow—on New Year’s Eve at the latest—there
is going to be great slaughter in the town. Everything one sees is cruel,
rough and repellent. I have hidden from it these last few days, and, near
my mother, in the peace of my home, once more I have had time to think.
The Government speaks of elections, and promises this sham legal
confirmation of its power for January, as the Entente refuses to deal
with it under present conditions. Meanwhile the Social Democrats are
trying to win over the villages, so the reform of the land-laws is again
to the fore. They have always been a poisonous wound in Hungarian life,
and should have been altered, justly, soberly, many a year ago. Previous
governments have postponed it unscrupulously; the present government
wants to use it as a firebrand. Buza Barna, the Minister for Agriculture,
has promised so much land to those who want it that he wouldn’t be able
to find it even if he were to divide up all the entailed and private
estates; and he has promised it for such an early date that it is
technically impossible to deal with the matter in time.
The intention is obvious. After the Russian pattern, they want to gain
the peaceful peasants’ adherence to their revolutionary principles.
So they promise land to everybody. This lying promise has spread with
evil results: following the example of the workers in the towns, the
agricultural labourers have now stopped work. They expect to till their
own plots in the spring, so why should they work for others now? No
autumn sowing is being done, and while the country is starving, maize,
potatoes, beetroot, swedes and vegetables worth millions remain in the
fields unharvested. Agitators visit the villages, inciting the people
against private property and landlords, and appealing to the servants and
labourers to take possession of the land.
As the Budapest Soldiers’ Council rules over the military administration
of the government by means of its government delegates, so the Budapest
Workers’ Council lords it over the civil administration through its
Socialist ministers. The leaders of the Soldiers’ and the Workers’
Councils are all of the foreign race, and they never tire of advancing
their intentions of spoliation, wrapped in the utopian dreams of
Bolshevism. The Workers’ Council at its last meeting in the New Town Hall
settled the fate of land reform by simply overthrowing it, by declaring
that the land was common property—that all private property must cease.
Then they settled the question of taxes in a manner that effectually
rendered any further discussion unnecessary. They proposed a hundred per
cent. tax on all property—_i.e._ confiscation.
These declarations and propositions are spreading rapidly all over the
country and preparing the minds of the people for the second revolution,
which Zsigmond Kunfi, Lenin’s emissary, threatens us will break out if
the middle classes show resistance or dare to organise, or go so far
as to attempt to give satisfaction to the powers of the Entente, who
would prefer to deal with a middle class government rather than with
the present rulers of Bolshevist tendencies. “There is need for a new
revolution,” says he, “and it will come.”
The Government made no provision for order, coal or food during the
Christmas holidays, but promised a new revolution instead—and it is with
this promise that the terrible year makes its exit.
* * * * *
_December 31st._
It was by accident that I went there. In front of the Maria Theresa
barracks the soldiers had erected barricades of benches and seats on the
pavement. They laid their loaded rifles on the backs of the seats, sat
there and drew a bead on everybody who approached. “Get away from here!”
they shouted. Now and then a shot rang out, but no damage was done.
I went into a shop; it was already crowded, and people were talking
excitedly. Somebody said there was to be a communist meeting in the
barracks. Béla Kún was to come from the Francis Joseph barracks, where
he had incited the men to drive away their officers, but the soldiers
could not make up their minds. Most of them watched the proceedings from
the windows and then somebody fired a shot down into the yard, whence
the fire was returned. There was a lot of firing and Béla Kún and his
associates disappeared in the confusion. The soldiers then began to
maltreat their officers and broke into the armoury, where about four
thousand of them obtained arms. They are coming now, and are going to
occupy the streets....
Four thousand men! It was precisely that number of Roumanians who
occupied Kolozsvár, but there were no four thousand Hungarians to face
them. By order of the Government Lászlo Fényes had disarmed and sent away
the Székler guards. It was in vain that Fényes was beaten later on by
desperate Transylvanian fists, for four thousand Roumanians had meanwhile
torn Kolozsvár from the country....
I was brought back to the present by people running past the shop.
Someone shouted “The Communists are coming!” A panic followed. Everybody
rushed into the street, and the shops’ shutters were drawn down quickly
behind them. Red rags appeared on houses, and the middle of the road
became as empty as if it had been swept clean. An armed lorry passed.
“There! That one on the right, that’s Béla Kún!” Hands pointed to a
vulgar-looking, yellow-skinned, dark-eyed, puffy-faced individual. His
hat was tilted to the nape of his neck and his overcoat was open.
As I was going home by a round-about way I pondered on the man I had
seen. Where had I seen his face before? Suddenly I remembered. Shortly
after the October revolution a man was addressing some disabled
soldiers from the top of a garbage box near the railway station. I had
been astonished at the time to see how this ghetto-Jew, who spoke bad
Hungarian and had only lately discarded the gabardine, managed to get
a hearing. I remembered that clearly. He had a common fat face and
his eyes blinked while he preached against the existing order. His
blubbering mouth opened and closed as if he were chewing the cud. He
shouted in a hoarse, lifeless voice. He grew warm, and as he spoke he
removed his hat frequently and wiped the perspiration off his baldish
head with the palm of his dirty hand. I had wondered at the ugly foreign
people who were listened to now-a-days by our folk. People who can’t
speak Hungarian set one Hungarian against another.
There was no doubt whatever about it. The man on the garbage box and the
man whom the people pointed out as Béla Kún were one and the same.
I heard later what had happened in the barracks. There too Béla Kún made
a revolutionary speech. Before he started, two Jewish corporals had
attempted to prepare the soldiers, but the soldiers threatened them and
they were lucky to escape. Then Béla Kún tried to speak. The soldiers
arrested him, boxed his ears, shoved him into the lock-up and turned
the key in the door. Everybody was pleased; the soldiers cheered their
officers, and it seemed for a moment that the soldiers of the Maria
Theresa barracks would stand their ground and beat anarchy. Then Joseph
Pogány arrived in a motor car with his escort. He inquired excitedly what
had happened, cursed both officers and men, and hurried to Béla Kún. They
had a long conversation in the lock-up, then Pogány solemnly released
the Communist and drove him off in his car. Meanwhile the mutinous
soldiers from the Francis Joseph barracks arrived. It was quick work.
When Pogány’s motor started with Béla Kún in it the soldiers were already
shouting with all their might “Long live Communism!”
In the afternoon Countess Károlyi, escorted by her husband’s secretary,
an officer called Jeszenszky, visited the barracks. In the evening it
was the talk of the town that there was going to be a mutiny, and that
the citizens were going to be massacred at night. Explosions were heard
now and then in the dark, and the rumour spread that the communists had
blown up a munition factory and the railway bridge. They were all false;
it was only the soldiers out on a spree. They fired the heavy guns, threw
hand-grenades, dragged machine-guns into the street and fired them just
to pass the time away.
[Illustration: BELA KUN, ANNOUNCING, FROM THE STEPS OF THE HOUSE OF
PARLIAMENT, THAT THE PROLETARIAT HAS TAKEN OVER THE GOVERNMENT.
(_To face p. 214._)]
Midnight drew nearer amid the clatter of fire-arms. As at Christmas, we
again gathered at my sister Mary’s. The New-Year’s punch was standing
ready in long fluted glasses, and the children kept looking at the clock.
I had a letter in my hand; it had come from the capital of Transylvania
with the last Hungarian post, behind it the barrier had crashed down. It
was just like getting news of the death of a relation during the war,
and after he had been buried receiving the last letter from his hand. My
heart bled, though I did not know, and had never seen, the writer of the
epistle. I read it out aloud:
KOLOZSVAR, December 23rd, 1918.
I have just read in the Sunday issue of ‘Az Ujsag’ your article
‘Awake.’ I cannot describe what I felt when I read your
lines, and yet I feel I must write to you. Every word of your
terrible, biting truth has engraved itself upon my heart. It
is this tone, this hard, bitter language, that we need to-day;
we need it as much as a starving man needs a bit of bread, as
a drowning person needs something to cling to. That is what we
want: the proclamation of our confidence, our self-respect,
to a world in which every nation boils with patriotism while
we Hungarians, alone, proclaim internationalism, humility,
and resignation—far beyond the necessities of our miserable
condition.
It is true: our leaders don’t feel Hungary’s death—and, what
is worse, our poets are silent as if they too were insensible
to it. I cannot thank you enough that in this backboneless,
collapsing, suicidal Hungarian world you have had courage
enough to throw it in our teeth. How many Hungarians like you
are there in the de-nationalised heart of our country, and how
many Hungarian writers besides you feel there, what we feel
here, when this evening brings us the burden of the certainty
that to-morrow, on Christmas Eve, Roumanian troops will tread
the streets of Kolozsvar?
I write these lines from the unhappy soil of Transylvania
on the eve of the occupation of its capital. I beg of you
don’t forsake us poor Hungarians in the future. Write for
us. We welcome your lines, your writings, as prisoners in
their dungeon welcome rays of sunshine. It is possible that
politically we shall fall to pieces, that the predatory nations
who fall upon us will tear us to shreds, but the meeting of
Gyulafehervar cannot make a law, the Government Council of
Nagy Szeben has not power enough, and the Roumanian occupation
cannot bring in an army big enough to tear from our hearts that
which was written there by your pen. As long as the Hungarian
spirit lives, there is hope for our resurrection.
I remain, etc.,
VEGVARI.
We looked at each other. This letter came, not from a single individual,
but from Kolozsvár, from the whole of unhappy, amputated Transylvania.
“What will there be in a year’s time? What will remain of Hungary?” Our
prophecies were gloomy indeed; the crowning mercy of hope alone remained.
Then my brother-in-law said: “They can tear us to pieces, but they’ll
never prevent us from getting together again!”
I asked my mother what she thought.
“It is your affair now. I shall watch you.”
The clock struck.
* * * * *
_January 1st, 1919._
This year people dare not wish each other a happy New Year. They murmur
something, then cast their eyes down with a strange expression, as if
they were looking into an open grave.
Kassa has been occupied by the Czechs! Under the tower of its old
cathedral, down in the crypt, Rákoczi’s skeleton hands are clenched and
he asks: “Is it for this that you brought my body back from Turkey?”
On the same day the Hungarian troops left Pressburg at the instigation
of the confidential men of the Budapest Soldiers’ Council. The local
Workers’ Council thereupon assumed control, and to-day, on New Year’s
day, the Italian Colonel Ricardo Barecca entered the town at the head of
a Czech regiment. On the bank of the Danube, beside a marble equestrian
statue of Maria Theresa, two Hungarians stand with “_Moriamur pro
rege nostro_” on their lips: did they cast their eyes down in shame,
is it only the stones that still say this in Pressburg? Meanwhile the
Government informs the country with pacificist satisfaction that: “in
order to avoid bloodshed the armed forces of the popular government have
retired everywhere.”
During the last few weeks the life of us Hungarians has been like an
attempt to climb out of a putrid well into daylight. We have toiled
painfully upwards, we have made desperate efforts to escape the slimy
horrors of the water, but in vain. The wall of the well, like a slippery
drain, grows higher above our heads, the water rises behind us, and there
is no escape. Slimy stagnant water, beastliness, utter beastliness.
Yesterday Mackensen was surrounded by French Spahis in the castle of
Fóth. He is now guarded like a criminal, and people are saying that
Károlyi is responsible for this.
It is an old-established custom with us that on New-Year’s day the Prime
Minister should make a speech, retrospective and prospective. Michael
Károlyi delivered his speech this morning. He accused the past and
renounced the future, accused the old system of being responsible for
all our misfortunes, and, as the only means of salvation, proclaimed
his feeble-minded hobby: “We must seek help for Hungary’s cause in
pacificism, for in that name alone shall we conquer.... Should pacificism
fail, then I say: _finis Hungariæ_.”
Pressburg, Kassa, Kolozsvár ... pacificism failed to save them. And the
man who said on the 31st of October: “I alone can save Hungary,” cries to
the deceived millions on New Year’s day: “_finis Hungariæ_.”
This cowardly declaration roused me from lethargy. I felt that from the
moment when Károlyi renounced his prey, our unhappy country became our
own, our very own. If it is over for him, it must start anew for us.
Henceforth I shall work more, and more ardently.
In the afternoon we met at my Transylvanian friend’s house. But before
I started from home various people rang me up on the telephone, and
warned me not to go out because riots were expected. Some made excuses
for non-attendance, some said they had been warned by the police, others
had received hints from Károlyi’s immediate surroundings. Though it was
scarcely four o’clock when I left home, I found that the concièrge had
already locked the front door of our house. Hardly anybody was visible
in the dead streets, shops and house-doors were all shut. The houses
looked repellingly, selfishly down on me, and I had the unpleasant
feeling that if anything happened to me not one of them would open its
door to rescue me. I felt depressed by a sense of expulsion and outlawry.
He who has never walked in the daytime through an empty town, where there
is no soul, no carriage abroad, where all the houses are shut up, has
never felt what real loneliness is.
Only a few of us met in my friend’s room: a few women and a politician or
two, dropped in at intervals. We were all sad and depressed, and nobody
started a discussion. The only thing we decided was that our organisation
should be called the National Association of Hungarian Women.
Before we parted my Transylvanian friend asked me what our material
resources were. I had not thought of this, so was embarrassed, and felt
rather ridiculous.... We hadn’t got a penny!... This is the result of
having an organisation presided over by someone whose creative power
is restricted to the writing-table, someone who could imagine the
possession of untold treasures when her pockets were empty. I could go
off to distant countries while sitting at home with my head between my
hands. I could create a scorching summer while the snow was falling, and
one flower was enough for me to make a spring. I could build houses and
harvest golden crops, though I possessed no land, no bricks, no garden
and no fields.
My friend laughed and whispered: “Don’t let it out, but if you want
anything tell me.”
When I went home the town had regained its usual aspect. The nightmare
had departed, the doors were open, the traffic had come back again into
the empty streets, and nobody could tell whence the false alarm had come,
whether the communists had meditated a rising, or Bartha’s scattered
officers’ corps had projected one. It’s just one of our daily frights.
* * * * *
_January 2nd-3rd._
Two peculiarities in the life and the manners of old people have become
clear to me lately.
In our generation it has never mattered much who over-heard what one
said. We are accustomed to speak openly. The security in which we lived
until lately made our opinions free and gave our age its undisciplined
character. I have often noticed that my mother and people of her age
speak in lower tones than we do, and more discreetly. They were bred in
times when there was always someone unwanted listening. The spy system
of Austrian absolutism taught them to be cautious. My mother has often
remarked: “You would talk of anything before anybody.” I used to think
that this restraint was the outcome of the educational principles of a
more refined age. But since the present illegal government, afraid for
its power, has taken to watching us with spies and _agents-provocateurs_,
I have realised that the superior, reserved expression of our elders is
not merely the outcome of a more aristocratic spirit pertaining to a
world that has gone, but that it had its ultimate source in self-defence.
In the same way another peculiarity of theirs has become plain. They
built their houses and made their furniture in a different way from ours.
When I was a child I used to love hunting for secret drawers in ancient
furniture, and concealed rooms and recesses in those cunningly built
old houses. I remember that whenever I went through the abodes of past
ages, old castles, manors and houses, I used to take a peculiar delight
in their elaborate and intricate construction. The secret hollow spaces
in the walls attracted me, and invisible cupboards—they contrasted so
strangely with the smooth lines of our modern houses. I realise now that
all this was not due to mere fancy. I realise that there is no precaution
of this sort taken in building a house which does not spring from a wish
for either attack or defence. The hidden recesses designed by the old
architects, the secret drawers in old furniture, the reticent, cautious
speech of former generations, all these were only protective against a
danger which threatened. In the last few weeks public security has grown
weaker and weaker, and the rumour has been spreading with increasing
persistence that the present spendthrift government intends to lay its
hand on all gold and silver in private possession. I often look round in
despair at the smooth walls of our house, which refuse all help. It is
not possible in these days to bury anything in the woods. The leaves have
fallen long ago, poaching soldiers are roaming about everywhere, and the
townspeople go out to steal wood all over the place. It is only in one’s
own home that one can hide anything.
I had a look at the cellar the other day, but its concrete floor would
only yield to a pick-axe, which would make a noise, and leave tell-tale
traces. The attics are out of the question, for we have had to remove
even the few things we kept there: it is not even possible to hang the
washing in them, for there are specialists of the burglar fraternity who
operate from the roofs of Budapest.
I spent sleepless nights pondering over the question where we should put
our silver when I brought it home; I even thought of the hollow window
frames. If we took up the parquet flooring it would give very little
space and we could put only a few things under it.
It was my mother who solved the problem, and we decided that I should
bring the plate chest home from the bank. This was not quite as easy as
it sounds, for I didn’t dare to do it by myself. A few days before, we
had sent my sister some curtains and pictures in a hand-cart, and a small
party of soldiers had simply taken the bundle off the cart and gone off
with it. So I asked a cousin of mine to come to my help. He donned his
uniform and armed himself with a revolver, and under his martial escort I
drove through the town. Whenever soldiers or sailors approached us a lump
rose in my throat. So many dear momentoes, so many old family things were
hidden in that box—practically all our valuables were rattling in the
ramshackle old cab!
I got home dead-tired. The day dragged to an end, and when at last
night fell and we could close the shutters without raising suspicion,
and the maids had gone to bed, we three started to hide the things. My
mother wrapped them up and then tied long strings to the handles of the
ewers and salvers. Meanwhile I hammered small nails into the top of my
bookcase, tied the strings on them and let down the salvers behind the
case, one after another. It was an excellent plan: nothing was visible,
either from above or from below: the things dangled peacefully in
mid-air. The tea-pots and ewers gave us more trouble, but there again my
mother had an idea. In the drawing-room a large mirror hung in a corner
and there was a big space behind it; so we hung the teapots and jugs by
strings from two hooks at the back of it.
A single electric bulb lit up the gloom of the room. A chair was placed
on the stove, my cousin, in full uniform, stood on the chair, and my
mother and I handed the things, dangling from their strings, up to him.
He bent up and down as if he were decorating a Christmas tree.
It was long after midnight when we had finished, and as I got into bed I
remembered that evening when I had seen the people in the opposite house
hiding their clothes, and I sympathised even more with them now. In fact
I approved of their action. The state requisitions clothes ostensibly for
the soldiers, but the soldiers never get them. It is just robbery, under
the guise of Socialism, like everything else nowadays: the collectors and
distributors keep anything worth keeping. Many a janitor and hall porter
appears suddenly in mackintoshes of British make, or valuable fur-coats,
and not a soul dares to say anything. The second-hand clothes shops are
full of clothes that have been commandeered.
When it comes to commandeering the silver it will be just the same. And
as I went off to sleep I was as pleased with the spaces behind the mirror
and the book-case as a smuggler with his cave.
* * * * *
_January 4th._
There are few people in the streets to-day. I left home early, for this
morning the police came and told us that they were going to make a fresh
examination of the villa where the burglary took place. After much
running about, however, we found that the police had forgotten the whole
affair, that no inquiries had been made, and that the official papers, as
well as my own complaint, had been mislaid. That is what usually happens
nowadays.
There is great excitement in town: the workmen are taking up a
threatening attitude towards the managements of the factories. The
Ganz engineering works were surrounded this morning by armed men, the
managers were dismissed, and new ones appointed—under the control of the
shop-stewards.
When I reached the bottom of the hill I had to wait a long time for a
tram. Only one man was waiting besides me at the stopping-place. He wore
a checkered pork-butcher’s cap and a ragged, dirty uniform, and in his
button hole he displayed the Socialist emblem, the red man with a hammer.
The stopping-place was at a lonely spot, and I felt uncomfortable, for
the man kept on looking at me.
I thought it as well to know with whom I had to deal.
“Has there been an accident, that there is no car?” I asked him.
“Maybe,” he said abruptly. And then, as if irritated by my presence, he
got angry. “We shall put things straight in no time,” said he. “We’ve
settled with the Ganz works. The trams will come next. But first of
all we’re going to socialize the state railways, and shall dismiss the
managements of all the works and yards. In the provinces we shall take
things in hand too. Béla Kún and Comrade Vág have swept the coal-mines of
Salgó Tarján.”
“It was a sad sweep,” said I. “The result was eleven killed and about
a hundred wounded. Do you know that there was scarcely a house left
standing afterwards?”
“The Communist workers behaved all right. It was the rabble that
plundered the town.”
“I was told that Béla Kún set the armed workers against the unarmed
population. It is said that the miners used dynamite to blow up the town.
They took possession of the depôts, the railway station, the post office.
Roving gypsies couldn’t have done all that. It was a well organised
rising.”
The man looked down, smacking his leggings with his cane. When he looked
up again there was hatred in his eyes.
“It’s just as well that you gentle-folk should understand that from
now on that’s how things will be done. Everything has been yours long
enough, now let it be the people’s.”
“Don’t you suppose that those you call gentle-folk have risen from the
people? To rise in the social scale one has to work, and it is worth
working for. Only it is not often the work of a single life, but of
several generations, till at last one reaches the goal. If from the start
there is no possibility of getting on in the world, it will mean that
industry, hard work and intelligence will be deprived of their reward.
Would you work without a prospect of a pleasanter life?”
“No,” the man said hesitatingly. Then, as if angered by his own
back-sliding, he said rudely: “They tell a different tale in the Unions.”
“The Jewish leaders....”
“Well, that’s true, they are Jews, every one of them,” he admitted
grudgingly. “Whose fault is it? The gentle-folk’s, who would not mix with
us. They never troubled about us, and left us to the Jews.”
“There you are right,” I rejoined, and he took off his cap when I got
into the tram.
I came home feeling chilled, and met three men on the stair-case, two
soldiers and one in civilian clothes. The maid who opened the door
informed me that they had come to commandeer lodgings.
“Did you let them in? Why did you not tell them that we already had a
certified lodger?”
“It was no good. They pushed me aside and came in. Poor, dear old lady.
They were so rude to her. They went everywhere, looked at everything, and
told her she would not be allowed more than two rooms.”
Naturally my mother was upset. A dentist with four children had put in
a claim for three of our rooms with the common use of the kitchen and
bathroom. If I remember rightly his name was Pollak and he had lived till
then in the ghetto.
I flew into a rage. I had never heard of any lodgings being commandeered
for Transylvanian refugees: they are expelled, while Galician refugees of
Austrian nationality are planted in our midst. What are they afraid of?
What are they fleeing from, that they thrust their way into the homes of
Christians?
“I’ll arrange it all, don’t you worry,” I said to my mother. “We haven’t
come to that yet....”
* * * * *
_January 5th._
It was my mother herself who took in the invitation, and the man who
brought it made her promise solemnly that she would deliver it into my
own hands alone.
I knew what it was about, and early in the afternoon I started on my
errand. It was five o’clock before I entered the door of the house owned
by the Franciscans. Some gentlemen were on the staircase before me. We
met in the rooms of Stephen Zsembéry, a former deputy. All the leaders
and principal members of the anti-revolutionary parties were present with
the exception of Count Julius Andrássy, who had mysteriously disappeared,
and Count Apponyi, who has retired from politics. Count Stephen Bethlen
proposed the union of all parties, as the only means of saving the
country. At first he was supported, then objections were raised and—when
we broke up it was decided to meet again soon, in order to come to some
final decision.
I was sad when I went home. On the way I remembered a story I had once
written of how an inn stood on the plain, on the great military road.
Warriors passed in great numbers, on their way to recover Buda from the
Turks. They hailed from all the corners of the earth. There were only two
Hungarians in the inn, but they could not get on with each other: they
quarrelled, came to blows, killed each other. Over their bleeding corpses
their greatest foe said happily: “That is a good job: if they had not
killed each other, we never could have got the better of them.”
These two Hungarians have had many names in the course of the centuries.
Once they were called Ujlaki and Gara, at another time Kuruc and Labanc;
then Görgey and Kossuth, quite lately Tisza and Andrássy. And to-day our
perennial ghost seemed to have walked during our labours.
_Æterna Hungaria_....