I accepted the commission. The interest of my country was at stake and I would have accepted the invitation whatever the source whence it came. Emma Ritoók brought the document back with her.... Károlyi had looked through it and had struck out everything that might have been of any use to our cause. So that was the reason for Countess Károlyi’s offer.... A sieve that shall stop even the smallest national movement. We are cornered, and when we would cry for help the government puts its hand over our mouths. Officialdom holds down our hands when we would help ourselves. “Put this carefully away,” I said to my friend, looking at the mangled document. “One day this may be another proof of his treason.” Various handwritings alternated on the margin, besides the considerable cuts that had been made in the text. “Jászi has read it, and Biró.... This is Károlyi’s handwriting; he even signed his name to it.” This was the first time I had seen his handwriting. Loosely formed characters, words run together, others only half finished, the lines slanting towards the corner of the page, capital letters in the middle of sentences and innumerable mistakes in spelling. It looked just like him.... “What shall we do now?” asked my friend. “We have worked in vain. The government will publish none but the revised document and it will stop any other from being sent abroad.” “I shall find some way,” I answered; “but I will never permit my patriotism to be censored by Michael Károlyi.” “Refuse it,” said my mother; “it is better it should not appear at all than appear in this form.” In the evening I wrote a letter to Count Emil Dessewffy, to whom I had mentioned the memorandum, asking him to use his social connections, or the services of the ever-increasing Territorial Defence League, to get it abroad in its original form. I wrote in pencil, at some length, and poured all my bitterness into the letter. I criticised men and events without mercy. I called Károlyi and his friends traitors and the leaders of the Social Democrats the advance guard of Bolshevist world-rule. I felt relieved when I had sent the letter. Then, I don’t know why, I began to feel rather nervous about it. That letter might land me in prison. Nonsense. How could it get into wrong hands? * * * * * _November 18th._ To-night the ground shook in this branded town. Mackensen’s motor columns were passing through Budapest. They went, without stopping, dark, thundering, betrayed, disappointed, out into the wintry night.... My sister-in-law told me she had seen them. Big waterproofs covered the clattering motors and only their lamps betrayed that there was life in them. Not a man was visible. Like the phantoms of war they came from distant battle-fields.