CHAPTER IX
November 16th.
I am ill after my fall yesterday. An icy wind blows at my window. Loud voices rise from the street.
Presently my mother looked out and said, “The saddlers and leather-workers are assembling; they’ve got red tickets in their hats.”
Hours passed by. Suddenly I heard a loud buzzing overhead and an aeroplane flew through the grey air over the streets. Parliament at this moment is proclaiming the Republic—Károlyi’s National Council is announcing that all Hungary shall be governed by the Republic of Pest. Some handbills were brought up to me from the street.... “Victorious Revolution.... Kingship is dead, long live the independent Hungarian Republic!”
I buried my head in my pillow, unable to say a word. There seemed to be a little mill in my chest and another in my head, and both went round and round madly, grinding me to powder. Then I became aware that there was a newspaper on my table—the smell of fresh bad printer’s ink betrayed its presence. It contained an account of what had happened; everything passed off in an orderly way and nobody had prevented it. Another opportunity missed, another day of hope gone! The House of Commons, the Lords, met, resigned themselves without protest, and the newspaper announces: “This is a red-letter day in Hungary’s history....”
Those who had been present told me afterwards that early in the day the trade unions proceeded from their meeting place to the House of Parliament. They carried red flags, big placards, and a black coffin marked “Kingship is dead.” The brass bands of the workmen and of the postal workers blared, bands of gypsies and choral societies gave voice. Red insignia everywhere. The nation’s colours had disappeared even from the caps of the national guards and they too sported red labels with “Long live the Hungarian Republic.” The only two Hungarian flags, and small ones at that, were placed on the front of the House of Parliament. Over the porch of the central entrance a huge red flag floated in the breeze as if Internationalism from its newly conquered home were putting its tongue out in derision at the crowd, which it had beguiled so far by means of cockades of the national colours and with white chrysanthemums. Opposite, on the buildings of the High Court and the Ministry of Agriculture, red drapery was displayed all along the first storey. It looked just as if a gaping wound, inflicted with a giant axe, had cut them in twain.
The shops were closed. Trams were not running. Traffic had stopped like a breath withheld, ready to cough itself again into the streets of the town. A cordon of sailors lined up in front of the House: rather a painful surprise for the government, this. Heltai had come back from Pressburg with his men in a special train: surely the Republic was not going to be proclaimed without him! So the defence of Upper Hungary is now suspended for the time being while Heltai adorns himself with the national colours: he entered Pressburg under the red flag. There are rumours that his sailors are connected with certain robberies. In Pest it is murmured that he knows something about Tisza’s murder.
Five aeroplanes circled over the square, the crowd kept increasing, and then a giant advertisement on a long stretched canvas was brought out on poles from a side street. The wind blew it up like a sail and made fun of its inscription: “This morning in Parliament Square we shall proclaim Count Michael Károlyi President of the Republic!”