In the afternoon I went to see the daughter of General Türr, the Hungarian who had been Garibaldi’s right-hand man and one of the heroes of Italy’s fight for freedom. It was rather a shock to see an Italian officer there, his chest covered with decorations. Where had he got them? I thought of the Hungarian dead at Doberdo and San Michele. And I also remembered that the Czechs were at present using Italian rifles to beat out the brains of Hungarian peasants in Upper Hungary.
When the commander of the American troops landed in France he shouted: “Nous voilá, Lafayette!”... When the Italian general who is leading the Czechs over the defenceless Carpathians stepped on Hungarian soil I wonder if he said, “Nous voilá, Tüköry ... nous voilá, Türr!...”
My hand twitched when I gave it to Italy’s soldier. And yet this stranger seemed a sympathetic, well-intentioned man. And Italy once was my second home, dear good friends of my youth live there and the fate of our two peoples has often taken a common road. We must forget, but it is still very hard.
We tried to inform Signora Türr of the situation, but Károlyi’s ministers had preceded us. They had betrayed themselves. Signora Türr spoke of them with the greatest contempt and promised to inform her government of the country’s desperate plight. “Why, what you have got here amounts practically to Bolshevism....” Practically!
February 28th.
It seemed quite unusual to have been in society again, without any serious cause or purpose, for nothing special, just as we used to in old times. Countess Mikes gave a tea party in honour of Stephanie Türr.
Loafing soldiers on the look-out gathered round the entrance when we arrived. Where are the old times? Where are the homes that knew no care? Electric lights dimmed in silken shades, the dainty lines of beautiful dresses, Paris scents, the smoke of Egyptian cigarettes; flowers, a shower of flowers——.
Now there are last Spring’s dresses, dim light, scanty heating, cigarettes of a coarse tobacco. Scents exist no more, and in a wide-necked vase three miserable, sad flowers. Hungarian society no longer has a social life. Those who can amuse themselves in these times are not Hungarians. Salons are dead, they have become the meeting-place of embittered conspirators where people talk to each other and then look anxiously behind them. Practically every Hungarian house is spied upon by its own servants. We know it but cannot remedy it.
Everything has changed, even conversation. In former times it turned on human interests, music, theatres, books, distant towns, foreign countries, acquaintances. Now we ask each other “What was it like in jail? Have they searched your house yet? I thought you had been arrested.” And if somebody says “I’m glad to see you” it has a different meaning from what it used to have. Count Albert Apponyi passed smiling and came up and shook my hands warmly. “So you are still free!...”