Among the parties which support the government differences become more manifest every day. They have practically formed two distinct sections, on one side the guilty, misguided Hungarians, on the other, the Socialists and Radicals, the foreign race. The latter are the stronger because they are better organised, and know what they want. Michael Károlyi is entirely under their influence, caught in the meshes of a net that is being drawn rapidly towards the extremist side.
Unity in politics only exists as long as it is a question of attaining power. The power, once attained, itself serves to divide the victors—swollen with pride and insolence. That is the moment to smash them.
“It would be premature,” Count Dessewffy told me, when I met him to-day in the street. I had only a short talk with him, for he was due at a meeting. They are forming an agrarian party, and hope to organise the peasant proprietors of the country.
“I have just remembered,” he added with a laugh; “only think of it. Károlyi means to send you on a political errand to Italy....”
“Does he always choose with such discernment?” I replied, and I could not help laughing myself. “Let him get me a passport and I will use my Italian connections—on two conditions.”
“What are they?”
“Firstly, that I travel at my own expense, so that I needn’t accept a penny from them; secondly, that I do not go in the interest of their republic and their government, but exclusively in the interest of my country. But that, I fear, won’t suit them.”
As I walked on I reflected on what I had heard. Dessewffy had information of the country’s mood, and he had said:
“The peasantry and the provincial towns do not take to the idea of this disguised communist republic, suggested by Pest. There are considerable parts of the country which are restrained with difficulty from openly espousing the cause of monarchy.”
“Don’t hold them down, let them raise their voice and sweep the board of this scum!” I had cried. But Dessewffy only repeated: “It would be premature. Let this crowd die off first.”