Page:Heinrich Karl Schmitt - The Hungarian Revolution - tr. Matthew Phipps Shiel (1918).djvu/20

 below. It was said that blood had flowed, and the sentinels at the station had been overcome by force. I hurried into the street, made my way into the Vàciutca, got a cab, and cried to the driver "East Railway Station!" as a wild uproar arose, cries of despair, a crazy crush. Constabulary on horseback were coming—it was said. But it was only a false alarm. The throng quickly regained composure, but surrounded the cab like a flood, so that I had to get out, and my wife was lifted out bodily.

Now it was along the Vàciutca in the thickest press. Suddenly someone cries out: "We need no two-headed Eagle! Down with the scutcheons!"

Nimble fellows climbed up the frontages in the most ingenious ways, and crash, crash, fell the imperial and royal arms, the proud emblazonry of the purveyors to the Court. But beyond the cries and jubilation no single breach of the peace took place.

How utterly disciplined the crowd was is best shown by the following incident.

A troop of young fellows discovered a glass-window with a splendid collection of Court-purveyor ensigns which were adorned both with the two-headed Eagle and with numerous high, highest and all-highest coats-of-arms. The troop wanted to shatter the glass, but a lively opposition arose, the crowd resisted, and someone cried out: "Order! don't soil the Revolution with sherds!"

"Revolution"

And the aggressive fellows were driven off; so also the crowd itself held all that was foul in its midst under its eye. But an inventive man procured paste from a near newspaper-press, and the pretty emblazonry was thickly pasted over. To revolt peaceably is very possible, I think!

The throng pushed us with it along the Kossuth-Lajos-Strasse on to the Hotel Astoria, where the offices of the National Council were.

Along the long balconies a lively movement: and ever new speakers stepped out. They all recommended calm and self-possession. So far as my recollection goes, the sense of their speeches was that thenceforth things would go as Kàrolyi