JOSEPH POGÁNY alias SCHWARTZ.
A motor-car passed me, going slowly. It was a beautiful car and its window was ornamented with a label: “National property, to be protected.” Near the label, inside the car, I saw the face of Michael Károlyi. I was in no laughing mood, yet I could not help laughing at this. “National property!”... The nation must be in a sad plight indeed. “To be protected!”... Is that the only thing which is to receive protection?
By Károlyi’s side his wife was visible. Now and then there was a cheer—“The King’s car,” said somebody near me. I felt suddenly sick. He goes about in the King’s car and is cheered. Stephen Tisza travels in a hearse and stones are hurled at him. The face of Tisza appeared so vividly in my thoughts that it seemed to stand before me.... I remembered a summer afternoon during the war. Mixing with the crowd, Tisza came towards me in a light summer suit. The descendant of a long line of horsemen he was slender and looked young; his shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, but his face was worn and as if shrunken with grief. Deep wrinkles ran to the corners of his mouth, and as I recollected him I thought of the strong, sad look in his eyes and the movements of his shoulders. Only his shoulders moved; he walked with an easy, elastic gait, as if he were strolling along a forest path, and his hands swung lightly....
The vision passed, and I was brought back to earth by some unkempt vagabonds cheering Károlyi. And the living man there in the car seemed more like a corpse than the dead man of my thoughts. His long, bloodless body was thin and bent. His narrow head, with its artificial stern expression, lolled on his shoulder as if it were too heavy for his neck to support. His watery, squinting eyes shifted blankly from side to side. His mouth was slightly open, as if his long, round chin had drawn down his fleshy cheeks. I remembered an ivory paper-knife I had once seen, the handle of which was carved to represent an unhealthy looking head, worn smooth by much use. He reminded me of that sallow ivory head, the neck of which had been turned into a spiral, like a screw. The screw of Károlyi’s neck had come loose, and his head dropped sideways. His wife was rouged in a doll-like fashion and her beautiful big eyes sparkled. Her voluptuous young mouth smiled in rapture, and she seemed to be drinking her success from the air greedily.
I looked after her. The car had long disappeared but it seemed to me as if the smile of those painted lips had left a trail of corruption over the suffering, harassed people. It spread and spread.... Stephen Tisza’s body is covered with blood. The frontiers of the country are bleeding. The enemy is victorious without having vanquished us. The army goes to pieces; the throne has fallen. St. Stephen’s crown has lost Croatia and Slavonia. The rabble robs and pilfers. A Serbian army has crossed the frontier.
And the painted lips smile, smile....
Only a few days ago Michael Károlyi had said in jest:
“The smaller the country becomes the greater shall I be. When I was leader of the opposition, the whole of Hungary was intact; when I became Prime Minister Croatia and Slavonia had gone; there will be five counties when I am President, and one only when I shall be King.”
If only the miserable deceived millions could have heard this, they for whose benefit he proclaimed on the 31st of October with the recklessness of the gambler: “I alone can save Hungary!” They believed him!... And yet mysterious Nature itself had warned the country to beware of him.