It is true: our leaders don’t feel Hungary’s death—and, what is worse, our poets are silent as if they too were insensible to it. I cannot thank you enough that in this backboneless, collapsing, suicidal Hungarian world you have had courage enough to throw it in our teeth. How many Hungarians like you are there in the de-nationalised heart of our country, and how many Hungarian writers besides you feel there, what we feel here, when this evening brings us the burden of the certainty that to-morrow, on Christmas Eve, Roumanian troops will tread the streets of Kolozsvar?
I write these lines from the unhappy soil of Transylvania on the eve of the occupation of its capital. I beg of you don’t forsake us poor Hungarians in the future. Write for us. We welcome your lines, your writings, as prisoners in their dungeon welcome rays of sunshine. It is possible that politically we shall fall to pieces, that the predatory nations who fall upon us will tear us to shreds, but the meeting of Gyulafehervar cannot make a law, the Government Council of Nagy Szeben has not power enough, and the Roumanian occupation cannot bring in an army big enough to tear from our hearts that which was written there by your pen. As long as the Hungarian spirit lives, there is hope for our resurrection.
I remain, etc.,
Vegvari.
We looked at each other. This letter came, not from a single individual, but from Kolozsvár, from the whole of unhappy, amputated Transylvania.
“What will there be in a year’s time? What will remain of Hungary?” Our prophecies were gloomy indeed; the crowning mercy of hope alone remained. Then my brother-in-law said: “They can tear us to pieces, but they’ll never prevent us from getting together again!”
I asked my mother what she thought.
“It is your affair now. I shall watch you.”
The clock struck.