The Count touched my arm. Wouldn't I like to see how it was done? How what was done? Why, the pledging.
I followed him out of the crowded room, where the foreigners were selecting the bargains for which they intended to bid next day. We went down a narrow, draughty stairway till we found ourselves in a kind of railway station. All along one side was a tier of windows, with iron railings leading up to them, and between the railings queues of tired people. They all carried parcels, as if they were going on a journey, but when they reached the windows they parted with their bundles—pushed them through the slit, waited and went away stuffing wads of paper money in their pockets.
This was the department where the jewelry was pawned. I was escorted through a door into the room which lay behind the windows. Here in long rows the valuers sat with scales before them, and magnifying glasses screwed into their right eyes. As a package was pushed through the slit across the counter they took it, undid it and examined its contents. They tested the stones. They weighed the metal. Then they scribbled on a slip of paper the sum of money the Government was prepared to advance. The pledger never demurred at the amount offered. He presented the slip at a neighboring window and the money was counted out.
Watching from the inside room, where the valuing was in process, I could hardly see the pledgers' faces. It was their hands thrust with a shameful furtiveness through the windows that told their story. All kinds of hands! I remember one pair. They belonged to a man of thirty—they were the supple hands of an artist. Behind the window I could make out his firm, clean-shaven face. Beside him a young woman was standing—probably his wife. My attention was attracted to her because, when he pushed the jewelry across the counter, she made a regretful gesture, as if she would draw it back. The valuer commenced coldly to examine it. The parcel contained a woman's bracelet, a man's cuff-links, a gold watch-chain and a wedding ring. It was the wedding ring that gave me the meaning of her gesture. The valuer scribbled his offer. It was for 2,400 crowns—about three dollars fifty. The offer was accepted and the next comer's pair of hands were thrust tremblingly into sight.
Last of all I was taken to the auction-rooms, where the sales were in progress. The Count warned me that at this time in the afternoon the auctions were not interesting. It was too late. The expensive lots were sold earlier. But despite his pessimisms, I was interested.
There was a long room, dimly lighted. Running up and down it in an oval, was a pathway of tables. It formed a barrier like the enclosure of a circus. Seated on the outside of it were the bidders, with faces avid as gamblers'. At a high desk the auctioneer sat enthroned—he gets seventy dollars a year for his trouble. In the space on the inside, which the table surrounded, the goods being auctioned were piled. And what do you think they were? Children's toys. Not new toys, but old favorites—dolls and rocking-horses and tin soldiers, the pillage of the nurseries of Vienna. They were the gifts which Santa Claus had left at little bedsides in years when the world was kinder. Like the wedding ring, they had to go. Bread was required.
CHAPTER V—ONCE IS ENOUGH
Once is enough,” says Budapest. “We shall never go Bolshevist again.” When one listens to the stories of what happened while Hungary was under the heel of Bela Kuhn, his only wonder is that once was not too much. The first man to give me an inside picture was the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian; his mother had been thrown out of a fourth storey window by the pillaging rabble who visited her home. The second was Hungary's greatest iron-master, who crouched with his wife and daughter in an unlighted cupboard during the entire regime of terror. But though Hungary is sincerely repentant and, as an actual fact, less likely than Great Britain or America ever to go Bolshevist, the indiscreet experiment of two years ago has created a prejudice. The need of Hungary is as pressing as that of any Central European country, but a quite insignificant amount of relief work is being done. There has been no feeding of children since last August, when the funds allotted for that purpose gave out. The American Relief Administration is planning to renew its activities immediately; but the neutral countries, which have carried on such fine work in other famished areas, have done next to nothing for Hungary. Yet Hungary's claims are in many respects more urgent. It has suffered from the war. It has suffered from the Peace Treaty, which has given away to Roumania and Czecko-Slovakia its best wheat-lands and all its important sources of fuel. It has suffered from Bela Kuhn. Last of all and most recent, it has suffered from the Roumanian invasion, which resulted not only in theft on a wholesale scale, but also in the most senseless destruction. From all these causes the country is filled with refugees and naturally the children are the chief sufferers. There are two refugee universities in Budapest, which have taken up their headquarters in old tobacco-factories. When I say refugee universities, I mean literally seats of learning like Yale and Harvard which have transplanted themselves entire, with professors and students and now have no visible means of support.