Page:Heinrich Karl Schmitt - The Hungarian Revolution - tr. Matthew Phipps Shiel (1918).djvu/17

 probable action of the no-longer existing Government. About seven o'clock the foreman of the great Budapest newspaper syndicate said to me that I might have some of my packets taken away, as it was uncertain whether he would be coming to the office in the morning. He added that a sort of time limit had been fixed by the Social-Democrats, and in case the interval was not employed to effect the definite appointment of Kàrolyi, the strike would be proclaimed.

Late in the afternoon I learned at the Radical Party's office that something was under way, but one knew not what exactly, or was unwilling to divulge it. Only a certain heightening of activity was to be remarked, and it was as if all at once thrice as many members were about as could be seen at other times.

At the Gendarmerie there was nothing unusual to be observed. A readiness for action, almost usual already, was well maintained, some motors stood ready, and a direct and unbroken contact with the military was kept up—at this time without complaint.

I went along the Donauquai, and, before the Parliament House, remembered the monster demonstration, which had passed off quietly, but only thanks to the merit of the crowd, for all had been done to goad the people to frenzy. This demonstration for Kàrolyi, whose aim was merely to convince the "ruling classes" that Kàrolyi was the only man in whose person all confidence was concentrated, presented a distressing picture. Generals with their cloaks puffed out backward by the wind, showing in this way the scarlet-red of their dress, and the blood-red of their souls in their rigidly-fixed visages, whizzed incessantly in service motor-cars over the open space. It was like a red rag to the crowdAnd infantry, posses of police, and whole companies of machine-gun contingents beset the Parliament Square. Thus was exhibited to the masses, some days before the explosion of their powers of expansion, to what ends the military still, as always, was misused. The men at the rudder forgot what an excellent lesson this was. And just as the open-air demonstration was at an end, there drove the best-hated man in Budapest over the Platz—General Lukachich, the victor of Isonzo and the victor of