“Yes,” said Dessewffy, “but,”—and he took his single eyeglass out of his eye, then replaced it suddenly—“but there has been a slight misfortune. The searchers found nothing implicating anybody. They took only one letter—yours!”
At first I did not know what letter he referred to. Then I remembered. I had written to Dessewffy in connection with the women’s memorandum, when I had been knocked off the tram and was ill, and in it I had written about Kingship, about the crown. I had passed judgment on men and events and had mentioned and stigmatised Károlyi, Jászi, Hock, Kunfi, Pogány and the whole Social Democracy of Budapest, as being the protagonists of Bolshevik world-rule. I remembered that even when I sent the letter it occurred to me that if it fell into the wrong hands it would entail retaliation.
Dessewffy seemed more upset about it than I.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “at least they will know what I think of them.”
February 9th.
And they did know.
It happened quicker than I expected. From the hands of the Police my letter passed into those of the Socialist party’s secretariat and thence to Joseph Pogány. I got reliable information of the whole thing—someone came to see me this morning. He asked me never to mention his name, and told me to be careful, as I was being watched and my telephone conversations listened to.
In town more and more requisitions are being made, and there have been many arrests, among others one of the leaders of the Awakening Hungarians, some officials of the War Office, the organisers of the armed force of the Territorial’s Defence League, and Madame Sztankay, one of the bravest women of the counter-revolution; all have been sent to prison. The stone cast by the County meeting of Fehérvár has made wider and wider rings.
The Social Democrats are destroying with feverish haste everything that has been built up by generations of Hungarians. Jászi has dismissed the Rector and the Dean of the University, while Kunfi attacks the elementary and other schools. The teaching of religion is abolished, patriotism is banished from the schools, and the national anthem prohibited. The books used for the teaching of history in the schools are ‘expurgated’ of everything that entitled Hungarians to take a pride in their past, and while this is going on the head of the Budapest communal schools informs the teachers by circular that: “those who cannot, or will not, conform to the spirit of these times, must take the consequences and stand aside.” It has all been done suddenly: the events of the last few days have urged the usurping powers to furious haste, and they are employing every possible shift to make sure of the future—for themselves.