A COMMUNIST ORATOR.
Having begun with the Roumanians, Jászi now takes counsel with the Slovaks; and while the Czechs’ troops descend, unhindered, into the valley of the Vág, and occupy town after town, the precious springs of Pöstyén among others, Jászi, Diener-Dénes and a fellow called Braun hand over to them our thousand-year-old rights. Jászi has already presented them with five Hungarian counties and offers a common administration for ten more. He bargains, humbles himself, and libels our rule of a thousand years. And even while he was shamefully giving up everything, and stupidly betraying the Government’s hopeless inability to act, it turns out that the whole of the negotiations were nothing but a trap. After having surveyed the situation here, Prag has informed Budapest officially: “No negotiations whatever with the Hungarian Government have been authorised by the Czecho-Slovak Republic....”
Such are our rulers. They sell us over and over again every day. What I was told in whispers is now admitted by the Government itself, because Vlad, the leader of the Roumanian guards in Transylvania, has given the show away. To display his strength and power, he told the unfortunate Hungarian inhabitants of Transylvania: “The Roumanian guards have received from the Hungarian Government ten million crowns and fifty-five thousand infantry equipments.” Now even the deaf can hear what the Government does with the arms it has filched from our soldiers, who, notwithstanding their disbandment, were anxious to defend the soil of their country. It gives the arms of Hungarian soldiers to Roumanians, while it collects the weapons of Hungarian citizens for the benefit of ruffians, escaped convicts and vagabond deserters.
The eternally harassing question: what is going on? has ceased to worry me. Now I know that everything that happens is barefaced treason, unlike any thing that has ever happened in my people’s history. The clauses of a secret red treaty dictate every purpose, every action, and its stipulations influence everything that has happened in Hungary since the 31st of October.
December 1st.
Once upon a time December meant something lovely, glittering, cold, white, and the warmth of bright fires. Now its whiteness is death, its cold is torture, and everywhere the fires are out.
The cold at night is awful. Its breath penetrates into the rooms, and terrifies one. When the maid told us this morning that there was no coal left in the cellar, I could not believe her. I took a candle and went down the winding staircase into the dark. The coal dust crackled under my feet and the light of the candle flickered to and fro on the cobwebbed wall. The cellar was empty; only a few logs of wood were lying in a corner. It was some time before I realised what that emptiness meant. I did not move, but just stood rooted to the spot while my breath steamed in the candle-light.
We had received our coal-permit eight months before, and were sent by the coal-office to a big coal merchant. Week after week passed and we got no coal. I wrote, sent messages, went myself at last. On the stairs of the building misery and cold were thronging patiently, and sad-looking people were loafing about in the office. I had to wait as though in the ante-room of a minister. Now and then the lady secretary called one of us by name. Jewesses in fur coats and with diamond earrings were standing behind me and laughing among themselves. They had come after me, yet they were admitted before me. Beside me a poor woman in a shawl was waiting and a gentleman in a shabby coat which had seen better days. The woman complained quietly: for days she had been unable to cook because she had no fuel. The gentleman, a judge in a high position, said that his children could not get out of bed, but had remained there for over a week, because their rooms were so cold.