I did not know what to say. After all, she was right.
Talk is buzzing behind me. Voices are raised. Somebody coming from Sopron says that the Austrians are covering the whole of West Hungary with their propaganda. The Czechs want a Slav corridor in those parts, right down to the Adriatic Sea. Another voice gives news of the British: “Don’t you know? They have decided that the whole navigation on the Danube is to pass into the hands of the Czechs, including all Hungarian vessels”.... “The Roumanians are advancing steadily,” says a whisper. “In Paris they cannot advance the line of demarcation as fast as they pass beyond it.”
In one county the Workers’ Council has expelled the landlords and various estates have already been socialised. Young Jews from provincial towns now direct and control the old stewards and bailiffs who have grown old in hard work on the estates. One voice rose in alarm: “The Government is impounding all banking accounts and safe-deposits. There is a run on the banks. Something awful is going to happen.”
I looked at the woman near the window who was wiping the tears from her eyes. Lands, rivers, old estates, acquired fortunes, money, gold—they are lost, but they can be recovered. But what that woman is weeping for is lost for ever.
March 15th.
This is the 70th anniversary of our glorious revolution of 1848. During the period of Austrian absolutism which followed it the nation commemorated it in secret. Then once more the flowers of that day, the national flags, were allowed to be unfurled freely. Anthems, songs, speeches, processions with flags. For half a century March the 15th was a service at the altar of liberty.
This day has never passed so dull and mute as it has this year. The flags, which have practically rotted off their staffs in the last few months, have lately become rare, and to-day they have not reappeared. It is said that it was by request of the Communist party that the Government has repudiated this day, though it claims to be its spiritual descendant.