I thought of the meeting of Hungarian gentlemen I had just left.
The wind howled round me, the flags tore at their staffs and fluttered wildly over the dark streets; their folds became entangled and they struggled as if desperate hands were wrung above the people’s heads.
January 13th.
I have been working the whole day long, at work that is new to me. In the office of our Association I have been racking my brain with details of organisation. I drew up handbills and wrote innumerable letters, though I hate writing letters. In the evening we met in the Zichy palace and decided that in any event we would prepare a memorandum of protest on the part of the women, so that it should be ready when the missions of the Entente arrived. Count Klebelsberg brought forward a draft, ready for translation into foreign languages.... Time passed, and we started home.
Nowadays it is rare to get a cab, and if one happens to meet one one may well say one’s prayers before entering it. During the last spell of darkness a soldier climbed on to the box of a cab in which were two ladies. He and the driver were accomplices. The horses were whipped up and the cab was driven at a mad gallop through lonely suburban streets, towards the cemetery. Fortunately the ladies jumped out, and so escaped; but goodness knows how that night would have ended for them if they had not.
Countess Zichy sent me home in her own carriage. Klebelsberg got out in the Inner town and I drove on alone. When we reached the Rákoczi Road all the street lamps were suddenly extinguished. The dark street gaped and swallowed us up.
There was shooting everywhere, and the horses became restless. I could feel that the coachman was frightened: indeed the night seemed full of terror. We arrived at a gallop at my house, and I saw that my mother’s window was open. Regardless of the cold she was sitting at it waiting for me, and now called down to the coachman: “There is a riot near the Popular Theatre, don’t go in that direction.”
The man thanked her for the warning, and the clatter of hoofs died away in the opposite direction, turning so suddenly that it seemed the very horses were aware of the danger.