It was fate that dubbed this book An Outlaw’s Diary , for it was itself outlawed at a time when threat of death was hanging over every voice that gave expression to the sufferings of Hungary. It was in hiding constantly, fleeing from its parental roof to lonely castles, to provincial villas, to rustic hovels. It was in hiding in fragments, between the pages of books, under the eaves of strange houses, up chimneys, in the recesses of cellars, behind furniture, buried in the ground. The hands of s

The writer of this book tells us that “here is no attempt to write the history of a revolution, nor is this the diary of a witness of political events.” Nevertheless the fact remains that it contains much more than the personal experiences of an actor in one of the greatest tragedies that has occurred in recent history. If it were only that, its value would still be very great, for it is so vivid and dramatic a human document, and yet its style is so simple and so completely devoid of all “frill

October 31st, 1918. The town was preparing for the Day of the Dead, and white chrysanthemums were being sold at the street corners. A mad, black crowd carried the flowers with it. This year there will not be any for the cemeteries: the quick adorn themselves with that which belongs to the dead. Flowers of the graveyard, symbols of decay, white chrysanthemums. A town beflowered like a grave, under a hopeless sky. Such is Budapest on the 31st of October, 1918. Between the rows of houses shabby, dr

November 1st. In the morning I heard that Tisza had been murdered. The telephone rang in the corridor, sharply, aggressively, as if the town was shouting out to us among the woods. It was with reluctance that I put the receiver to my ear. The ringing stopped and I heard only that meaningless buzzing at a distance. It lasted for some time while I stared through the window at the little ice-house in the garden. At last there was silence and I recognised the voice of my brother Géza. He spoke from

Dawn of November 2nd. It was long after midnight before my mother’s door closed. I hung a silk handkerchief over the lamp so that its light might not be seen from outside and then I went through the letters accumulated on my writing-table. Suddenly a bell rang in the hall. The telephone.... Who could call so late? What has happened? I ran quickly down the stairs. An unfamiliar voice spoke to me from the unknown. A terrified, strange voice: “Save yourself! The Russian prisoners have escaped from

November 2nd. The house stood amid a sad, grey morning. Through the fog a continuous drizzle was heard in the woods, and along the road a muddy stream gurgled in the broken gutter. The people in the electric trams going townwards were just like the morning itself: grey, wet and sad. They spoke of the mutiny in the Russian camp. “They have been disarmed”.... “Not at all, they have spread over the country....” “They pillage in small bands, like the escaped convicts. They too broke out on the news

November 3rd. A raven sat on a branch of the chestnut tree. It did not fly away when I opened my window, but sat there like a stuffed bird and stared with half-closed eyes into the yard. Near the black bird a few big red leaves fluttered on the bare tree, like bleeding scraps of flesh on a skeleton. And the raven sat on top of the skeleton against the rusty sky and rubbed its beak now and then against the branches as if it would scrape some carrion from it. Then again for a long time it sat moti

November 6th. I feel so queer. I feel as though there were an open wound in my head from which blood was spreading over my thoughts. How long can one bear this kind of thing? Something must happen.... We always say that, and yet one hopeless day passes after the other. All that happens is that we get news of some further disaster. The whole country is being pillaged. Escaped convicts, straggling Russian prisoners, degraded soldiers, murderers are plundering country houses, farms, whole villages,

November 8th. The wind chases the clouds above the Danube. It whistles down the chimneys. The streets of Buda shiver between the houses. The tram to our hills was practically empty. Everybody has come to town and the houses stand abandoned. The strokes of axes resound in the woods, and trembling townspeople steal scraps of wood along the roadside. Shabby clerks, teachers, women pick up brushwood in the thickets. Now and then a shot is heard from the hills. Thousands of disbanded soldiers have ta

November 12th. What has happened? In front of one of the big schools sailors were lined up in a row. A company, armed to the teeth, stood in the middle of the road. People looked at each other curiously, anxiously. This school had an evil past. In October the deserters had gathered together here, the armed servants of the Károlyi revolution. It is said that Tisza’s murderers started from this point. “What are they up to now?” “They’re Ladislaus Fényes’s sailors. They’re going to Pressburg agains

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 th

November 21st. To-day the newspapers are full of the complaints of Károlyi’s government. The government has sent protesting telegrams to the Allies, the Czechs, the Roumanians. It appeals to the armistice concluded with the Allied armies, to the Wilsonian principles, to world-saving pacifism. It clamours for justice, help, food, and coal. And Károlyi threatens that “if the Allies do not want to see the formation of ‘green’ forces—he does not mention the ‘red’ because he has already formed those—

November 27th. After all this humiliation, shameful submission and silence entire districts of the country are raising their voices in protest. The Széklers in Transylvania have risen; the flag of the Székler’s corps has been unfurled, and Count Stephen Bethlen has organised a Székler National Council. Transylvania is graven on his heart and he has remained faithful to himself. He has always sacrificed everything to the good of the country. It is encouraging to hear his name in these times when

December 8th. My way took me through the garden of the old Polytechnic. The place was black with people. In the great hall of the ‘Stork’s Fort’ Széklers and Transylvanian Hungarians were gathered together. The streets poured forth their masses: the crush up there must have been awful. I stopped against the railings and looked at the passers-by, excited officers, Székler soldiers, sad, care-worn people—homeless, every one of them. All their faces were of the Hungarian type. These are the people

December 23rd-24th. Everyone I have spoken to within the last few days has expressed anger and disgust over Mackensen’s arrest. Countess Raphael Zichy told me she met Michael Károlyi accidentally, and told him straight out what she thought about it. “It was bound to happen,” he answered cynically, “the worst that can happen now is that I shall have the reputation of having been the first ungentlemanly prime minister of Hungary.” We met again in the Zichy Palace, the same group as last time. We h

January 6th. That ghost has been haunting us too long: it must be laid. Ever since I met this ever-recurring cause of our nation’s defeat in the Franciscans’ house, my language to the women has assumed a graver tone. Those who have allowed the country to go to rack and ruin have not changed, and so a new future must be built up in the minds of the children. To succeed our own much tried generation we must raise up a new one which understands and holds in horror that bane of our nation, party str

January 25th-26th. It almost seems as if the terrible eye of the magician who has kept the town in bondage is beginning to lose its power. The country tied to the stake is freeing its hands from its fetters and a great awakening is stirring over the Plain. News pours in. The Roumanians have retired before the Székler bands, and on their retreat they are robbing and destroying, but Kis-Sebes and Bánffy-Hunyad are ours again, and they are packing up in Kolozsvár. The Hungarian forces have appealed

February 20th-22nd. As one looks back on distant days they seem to melt into one like a row of men moving away, and yet they passed singly and each had its own individuality. Long ago the days smiled and were pleasant, now all that is changed. One day stares at us, frigid, relentlessly, another turns aside, and one feels there is mischief in its face; some of them look back threateningly after they have passed by. Such are the present ones. When they have passed they still look back at us and mu

March 1st-5th. Winter is still with us, but the winds bring signs of awakening from afar. March ... the month of fevers and commotions. On the earth fatigue and restlessness chase each other. Flooded rivers race along. There is no visible sign of it, yet spring is there somewhere over the horizon. Whose spring is this to be? Ours or theirs? Signs of evil omen prophesy against us. The monster, raised from the dark by Károlyi’s party in October, shows its head daily more boldly and now grips the c