And while all these people, suffering greatly, were grateful because I said what they all felt, our foremost actress, Theresa Csillag, was walking about the town selling the shabby newspaper and, with her inimitable, beautiful voice, reading to the very souls of the passers-by the appeal: “Wake up!”
There are many of us, only we don’t know each other.
CHAPTER XIII.
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.