The news-boys of a mid-day paper came shouting down the street: “The National Council has proclaimed the Republic!”
“Long live the Republic....” This was only an attempt, but it failed. Nobody became enthusiastic. Someone shouted: “To Gödöllö!”
A Versailles, à Versailles! The starving mob of Paris shouted this a hundred and thirty years ago, and now in Budapest fat bank clerks exclaim: “Let us go to Gödöllö!” Nobody moved. It is said that ten thousand armed workmen are marching on it.... I burned with shame. This news was not invented by Hungarian minds. Armed men, against children! It is not true.... At any rate, the King’s children have made good their escape.... I only heard half of what was said. Poor little children!...
EUGENE LANDLER,
HOME SECRETARY. LATER A COMMANDER IN THE RED ARMY.
As if I had been chased I turned to go down the boulevard towards the bridge. By now armed sailors were already stopping motor-cars in the streets, thrusting the occupants out and driving off in the cars. It was done quickly. Big lorries filled with armed soldiers raced across the bridge. Some were even hanging on to the steps. Shots were fired, and a drunkard sang in a husky voice: “Long live the Revolution, long live drink....”
The whole thing was humiliating and disgusting. If only I could escape from it, so that I might see nothing, hear nothing! I longed for home—home, out there in the woods, among the hills.
At the entrance of the tunnel that passes under the castle hill a soldier was offering his government rifle for sale and asking five crowns for it. Another offered his bayonet.
On the other side of the tunnel I felt as if I had emerged at the antipodes. There the town was quiet, so quiet that I could hear the echo of my steps in the streets of Buda. The single-storeyed houses cuddled peacefully on the side of the hill. There people will not know what has happened till to-morrow, when they will read it over their breakfast.