Photo. Koller, Budapest.
The newsboy opened the door and threw the newspapers into the hall. The papers flew in disorder over the floor. I said nothing about it, though he seemed to expect some remark and looked back with an impudent grin to see the effect his action had produced. Yesterday he would not have dared to do such a thing. To-day the change has affected him too. How quickly it spreads, faster than civilization! That would take years to cover the road.
I picked the papers up. Not one had the customary black margin of mourning. A significant omission on the part of newspapers of Tisza’s old party; it showed the restraining influence of some unknown power. His death was reported in neutral words, hidden in some obscure corner, while one of the papers indulged in a riot of adulation for the National Council and another shrieked victory over the success of the revolution which it had prepared. It wrote cynically about Tisza and sneered at his widow. It referred to the King as Charles Hapsburg and proclaimed in its columns the republic for Hungary.
At last the Hungarian Liberal and Radical press has removed its mask and displayed its countenance, which had never been Hungarian, in all its nakedness. But to ponder these things was unbearable, and the reality of our misfortune burdened my soul anew with anguish. How shall I tell mother? I crossed the hall slowly, hesitatingly, and went to her room. As soon as I opened the door she looked at me inquiringly, as though she were expecting something.
“Well, what has happened?”
I searched for words to minimise the shock, and then, I don’t know how, I blurted out: “Tisza has been murdered!” The words sounded sharp and metallic, like the stroke of an axe when it fells a living tree which in its fall clears a gap in the forest.
I shall never forget the sudden, painful alteration in my mother’s face. She, who always managed to look collected, lifted both hands to her forehead. “What is to become of us?” she asked, in sobs rather than words. I had never seen her in tears before, and the grief that swept over me almost stopped my breath: I was so unprepared for her sorrow that I could utter no word of consolation. Silently I kissed her hand. Then for a long time we remained silent.
“How did it happen?” she asked at last, in a voice so weary that it was as if she had travelled a great distance during our silence.
“Soldiers ...” and I handed the papers to her. I glanced at the page of one of them: these lines met my eyes: “... Glorious Revolution. The National Council has taken over the government of Hungary.... Naturally the constitution is no longer what it was. The King has handed all his powers to Károlyi, so that he may maintain order in the land.” I turned the page. “One detachment of soldiers after the other declares its adherence to the National Council. The communal authorities have submitted to the National Council. So have the Exchange, the railwaymen, the men of the electric trams.... Count Julius Andrássy, the last common Minister for Foreign Affairs, has resigned!”