It was thus that Mackensen became a prisoner of Hungary. Was it a long time ago? Was it in my childhood that I heard the story that once upon a time the shout of “Mackensen, Mackensen!” resounded victoriously at three gates of Hungary? * * * * * _December 17th-22nd._ We walk in the gutter of shame between two close, high walls, whence there is no escape and no rest. In this deadly atmosphere we sink deeper and deeper at every turning. Yesterday evening was even worse than usual. It was late when I said good-night to my mother, and I could get no sleep. Nations carry their misfortunes in common, and that is why they can bear the worst, but the shame which has now befallen us is so colossal that it seems to belong to us alone. It isolates us from humanity. I had been lying motionless in the dark for a long time and could think of nothing but how Károlyi had sinned against us. To-morrow the whole world will know it and even our enemies will despise us for it. Our enemies?... The face of a German soldier seemed to stare at me from the dark. He was wounded; a shell had torn off both his legs. He had been brought from Transylvania about two years ago. I had spoken to him in the German hut at the railway station. And then there appeared another, and, as in a mad feverish dream, they came, and came, through the dark, pressing on in endless array, covered with blood, lame, mutilated, all those I had met in four and a half years’ of war. One looked hard and scornful, another reproachful, and all stared at me pitilessly, and in my dream I could hear their moans. During the years of war, the German, in his infinite pride, clumsily, coarsely, often hurt us, as he has hurt us before many times in history. His dreams of annexations have often eliminated the possibility of peace. His manner of waging war, the work of his diplomacy, and, above all, the arrogance he assumed in dealing with us, were often strange to our mind. But we recognised his greatness, his strength, his endurance and his honour, and I am convinced that there is not a single Hungarian in Hungary who does not repudiate, desperately and indignantly, that which Károlyi has dared to do in our name to Mackensen.