This warning was conveyed by the War of Independence of 1848, which had just broken out. At the first approach of the storm the schools were closed and lectures discontinued. Commerce was stopped, and every one was anxious as to the result of the storm that was breaking over their heads. To make matters worse, the mob in Presburg began a regular persecution of the Jews, plundering the ghetto, breaking into houses and shops, and destroying hundreds of barrels of wine and spirits in the cellars.
The maddened and drunken mob then stormed through the Judengasse, on to the Wödritz, and round the Zuckermandl, and the cries and wailings of the persecuted Jews rang in every one's ears for some time after. Thus the busy little colony was cast into poverty and despair.
I was rudely waked from the enjoyment of my imaginary good fortune; but my chief feeling was one of disgust at the horrible executions of Hungarian patriots, stigmatised as rebels, which I, in my youthful curiosity, attended on the so-called Eselsberg, behind the fortress. Two of these bloody scenes especially took deep root in my memory. One was the execution of Baron Mednyanszky, the commander of the little fortress of Leopoldstadt, taken by the Austrians, and of his adjutant, by name Gruber. Both were young, and, laughing and talking, they walked arm-in-arm to the scaffold. When I saw how those constables of the Camarilla treated the corpses of these martyrs for freedom, swinging them by the feet as they hung on the gallows, I was overcome by a strange feeling of revenge. I called the Slav soldiers several opprobrious names, and it would have gone hard with me had I not hurried away.
The second awful picture I have in my mind's eye is another execution I witnessed on the same spot, namely, that of a Lutheran clergyman called Razga, who was condemned to be hanged for preaching a sermon of Hungarian national tendency. This noble man was accompanied from his prison to the place of execution by his wife and children. Embracing and comforting his dear ones, he walked to the gallows with a firm step, and when the Profos had read the sentence and broken the staves, the heroic churchman kissed each member of his family, and gave himself into the hands of his executioners. Mother and children (I do not know how many there were) knelt on the ground near to the scaffold, their sorrowful gaze fixed on the condemned husband and father, and several of them fainted, overcome by sorrow.
This scene brought tears to the eyes even of the soldiers, and the reader may imagine what an impression it left on a sentimental youth like me.
The present generation of Hungarians has, for political reasons, drawn a veil over this and other dreadful scenes; but it can only partially cover them, for those who were present will always remember them with a shudder.
My further residence in Presburg had become impossible, and I began to look about for an engagement in the country. I accepted the offer of a poor Jew in the village of Marienthal, near Presburg, to spend some months in his house in the capacity of family preceptor. There, in a quiet valley of the Carpathians, I could once more devote myself to my private studies, and when I returned to town with my modest earnings in my pocket, I decided not to enter the sixth class at the Benedictine college, but at the Protestant Lyceum, as the professors there were known to be unprejudiced, humane, and intelligent men, and I was heartily tired of the everlasting drudgery for the fanatic monks.
At the Lyceum the language spoken was mostly German, and the lectures were better in every way, so that I might have got on very well there had not my difficulties in procuring the necessaries of life recommenced, and partly withdrawn my attention from my studies. At that time I was eighteen years old, and weary of my eight years' struggle with all the moods of Fate. My spirit was so broken that I decided to pause in my studies for a year, and take an engagement as tutor in a country family, and then, having earned the necessary means, return to town and take up the thread of my studies again.