X—WITH THE HUNGARIAN NOBLEMAN
Saturday, January 9th. Yesterday on my arrival in Budapest I found awaiting me an invitation from Count Albert Apponyi to visit him at his castle at Eberhard, near Pozsony. I left Budapest at eight, reached Pozsony about eleven, and drove to Eberhard, where I was received by the Count.
I was extremely impressed on meeting Count Apponyi. I had anticipated something unusual, but he was quite beyond my expectations. He is about six feet three inches tall, has a splendidly erect carriage, and is a most impressively handsome man. He has a broad, well-shaped forehead sloping back steeply, splendid blue-gray eyes, the biggest, thinnest nose in the world, enormous nostrils, a strong, sensitive mouth, and a grayish, square-cut beard. The "grand old man of Hungary" looked up to his title.
He has been a member of the Hungarian Parliament for forty-two years and has several times held ministerial portfolios....
He has twice been in America. He has several times visited ex-President Roosevelt at the White House and at Sagamore Hill, and the Colonel has been a guest here at Eberhard....
At luncheon there were as guests the Count and Countess Karolyi Hunyadi and two of their sons, and the Countess Herberstein, whose husband is a general in the army.
Sunday, January 10th. I had the honor of a very interesting walk and talk with Count Apponyi this morning. Among other things he said: "I sometimes let my younger daughter (aged 12) play with the children of the peasants on the place. It gives her an understanding of life, and besides, there is no one of her own age and rank in this part of the country." This for a Hungarian nobleman is an extremely democratic remark.
(And so this American Attaché continues to write in his notebook the impressions which he received on his official journeys through the war-ridden countries, which were so soon to become the enemies of his own country. His diary is one of the most interesting records of the war.)
FOOTNOTE:
[5] All numerals relate to stories herein told—not to chapters in the book.