“In consequence of the armistice as agreed between the plenipotentiaries of the High Command of the Royal Italian Army, acting for the Allies and the United States of America on the one side and the plenipotentiaries of the High Command of the Austro-Hungarian Army on the other, all further hostilities on land, on water and in the air are to be suspended at 3 p.m. on the 4th of November all along the Austrian and Hungarian front.”
What then do Károlyi and his associates want to negotiate about in Belgrade?
An angry protest rose in me. Michael Károlyi and his minister Jászi; Baron Hatvany, the delegate of the National Council; the Commissary of the Workers’ Council, a radical journalist; the delegate of the Soldiers’ Council; Captain Csernyák, a cashiered officer ... how dare these men speak in the name of Hungary?
I became restless. The walls of my room seemed to be closing in upon me, caging me. The room, the house, the town, had all at once become too small for me. What was happening beyond them? Was salvation on its way? It must be quick, for the flood is rising, swelling, it has reached our neck, to-morrow it will drown us. I could stay at home no longer. I must do something; walk, run, tire myself out. The anxieties of the last few days have whipped me into action. Suddenly I realised that my own inactivity was part of the great culpable inactivity of the nation. I too was guilty of lethargy. No longer must I content myself with accusing others, no longer expect action from them alone. Dimly, despairingly, I realised that henceforward I must expect something from my own self.
But what could I do, I who have lived a retired and almost solitary life, I who could do nothing but love my country and depict its beauty with my pen? What is the good of speaking of one’s country when a whole town, with a foreign soul, laughs in one’s face? What good is its beauty when millions tread it under their feet?
Despondently I walked slowly through the badly lit, dingy streets. At the gate of the Museum a sailor was standing, a rifle over his shoulder and a revolver in his belt. Opposite, under the porch of the old House of Parliament, soldiers were unloading heavy boxes from a motor lorry and dragging them into the building. This building, in which Francis Deák had once poured out his soul before the National Assembly of old, was now the headquarters of the revolutionary Soldiers’ Council. Its organiser, Joseph Pogány, whom Károlyi had nominated Government’s Commissary, had by now risen to such power that he could effectively oppose the Minister of War.
“What is there in those boxes?” a slatternly servant girl asked a soldier.
“Bandages,” replied the soldier, and winked at her; “but we bring the best of it at night!” As soon as he noticed me he shouted out threateningly: “Get away from here! Down from the foot-path!”
I noticed then that there were machine-guns on the lorry, and that two words were repeated on all the boxes: Danger and Cartridges.
The Minister of War orders the ammunition at the front to be thrown away, while the Commissary of the Soldiers’ Council accumulates it in the heart of the capital. Is it accidental or is there a connection between the two?