CHAPTER V
November 3rd.
A raven sat on a branch of the chestnut tree. It did not fly away when I opened my window, but sat there like a stuffed bird and stared with half-closed eyes into the yard. Near the black bird a few big red leaves fluttered on the bare tree, like bleeding scraps of flesh on a skeleton. And the raven sat on top of the skeleton against the rusty sky and rubbed its beak now and then against the branches as if it would scrape some carrion from it. Then again for a long time it sat motionless and stared unconcernedly at the ground beneath it. Suddenly it swayed as if it were going to fall, sprang clumsily away from the branch, and slowly took its flight into the autumnal air. Whither is it going and what is happening there?
Alarming news comes from all parts of the country. Home-coming soldiers and inflamed mobs are pillaging everywhere. As yet the news relates to no definite locality, for there is no post, and the newspapers pass over in silence anything that might create prejudice against the new power, yet the glare of conflagration is to be seen in all directions. Many people fled from the capital after the 31st of October, but in vain; risings awaited them in the very places where they hoped for safety.
The government took good care that this should be so. Károlyi’s party, as well as the socialist and radical party, got together agitators whose duty it was to incite the lower classes. And these did not confine their attention to the returning soldiers, but lectured the peaceful country folk concerning “the results of the glorious revolution and the dangers of the counter-revolution.” They threw firebrands wherever a conflagration was likely, and blew into flames such smouldering fires of revolt as they could find.
At the tram station the newsboy openly offered for sale the papers of subscribers: no more newspapers will be delivered, and those who want one must go and fetch it, they rudely asserted. They all seem to have learnt the same lesson. The voice of the street becomes coarser day by day and in every word there is an intonation that savours of class hatred.
Crowds gathered in the town. Meetings were being held everywhere. In front of the House of Parliament a few thousand workmen and the people of the Ghetto had assembled. Speeches inciting to violence were heard on all sides. The contractor Heltai, now commander of the garrison, and a socialist agitator called Bokányi, addressed the crowd:
“Down with Kingship! Down with the House of Lords! We want new elections! But the elections won’t be made by Lord Lieutenants but by the People’s Commissaries!”
The People’s Commissaries ... Trotski and Lenin’s henchmen in Hungary! So now the rebellion which dubbed itself the national revolution dares to speak openly of these! Everything here is being ordered after the Russian pattern. In the barracks the men of the garrison have dismissed their officers, elected representatives, and constituted Soldiers’ Councils, which are developing into a new power. The head of this new power is a socialist journalist called Joseph Pogány-Schwarz. The vice-presidents are Imre Csernyák, a cashiered officer, and Teodor Sugár-Singer, a Galileist with a shady past. Pogány has declared that “the military council can have only one programme: the final abolition of the army!” and while day by day he arms more workmen with the help of the socialist party organisation, he dissolves feverishly the old Hungarian army. Nor does the Minister of War remain inactive: he has organised Zionist guards and has armed the members of the Maccabean Club. Ladislaus Fényes, who from being a journalist has turned into the Government Commissary of National Guards, has enlisted and equipped more and more vagabonds and escaped convicts with sailors’ uniforms.
