The house stood amid a sad, grey morning. Through the fog a continuous drizzle was heard in the woods, and along the road a muddy stream gurgled in the broken gutter. The people in the electric trams going townwards were just like the morning itself: grey, wet and sad. They spoke of the mutiny in the Russian camp.
“They have been disarmed”.... “Not at all, they have spread over the country....” “They pillage in small bands, like the escaped convicts. They too broke out on the news of the revolution. They captured a train and came, all armed, towards Pest. On the way they fought a regular battle, with many dead and wounded; the rest escaped.” ... “No, they did not. They enlisted as sailors.”
There was panic and confusion in all this talk, and nobody seemed to know anything for certain.
The tram turned round the foot of the hill. At the stopping place I bought a newspaper. The papers were filthy, and the woman who sold them did not take much heed of me; she was talking politics with a hawker who sold boot-laces and moustache wax at that spot.
“Give me the Budapesti Hirlap.”—But the paper which for the last ten years had fought, practically single-handed, against the machinations of the destructive press was not to be had. The woman thrust another paper into my hand. The tram went on and I began to read. As if announcing a glorious victory the head-lines proclaimed in immense type: “ON THE WHOLE FRONT WE HAVE LAID DOWN OUR ARMS! IN CASE OF OCCUPATION WE HAVE ASKED FOR FRENCH OR BRITISH TROOPS.” Something stabbed and tore my heart: Gorlice, Limanova, Lovchen, Doberdo....
The newspaper continued: “Six weeks are needed for the conclusion of peace.... The King has relieved the new government from its allegiance.... The government has decided in principle for a Republic and has extended its programme by this condition.... The Government has sworn allegiance to the National Council at the Town Hall ... the touching scene, which buried a past of a thousand years, passed amidst indescribable enthusiasm.”
Our arms laid down! Foreign occupation! The King has relieved the perjurers! A republic in Hungary! And one of the most important papers in Hungary writes of all this as if it were the accomplishment of long cherished hopes, as if it rejoiced that “the past of a thousand years” had been buried! Not a word of sympathy, of consolation.
Then something suddenly dawned on me: in this paper a victorious race was exulting over the fall of a defeated nation! And the defeated, the insulted nation was my own!... So they hated us as much as all that, they, who lived among us as if they were part of us. Why? What have we done to them? They were free, they were powerful, they fared better with us than in any other country. And yet they rejoiced that we should disappear in dishonour, in shame, in defeat.
I threw the newspaper away—It was an enemy.
We came to the Pest end of the bridge. The tram stopped, and I wanted to change. “The trams are not running. You can walk,” growled the inspector. The walls are covered with posters, orders, announcements, proclamations. On a big coloured poster: “Lukasich has been appointed executioner.” And under the announcement the execution of a soldier was depicted. As I walked along my eyes gleaned a sentence from another poster: “People of Hungary, soldiers, workers and citizens!” (The order of the words was significant; but it did not appear to strike people’s imagination). “Fellow-citizens! Glory, honour and homage to the victorious people of Budapest. The people’s revolution has conquered” ... and the signature: “The First Hungarian Popular Government.” Then another sentence: “The military and civil power is in the hands of the head of the Hungarian Popular Government, Michael Károlyi.” Many words, many black words. I read the last words of the Popular Government’s Proclamation: “To assure the transition from the present conditions to a quiet peaceful life, we organise Soldiers’ Councils and a National Guard so that eternal peace may gain its healing sway over us all.”