We looked at each other. This letter came, not from a single individual, but from Kolozsvár, from the whole of unhappy, amputated Transylvania. “What will there be in a year’s time? What will remain of Hungary?” Our prophecies were gloomy indeed; the crowning mercy of hope alone remained. Then my brother-in-law said: “They can tear us to pieces, but they’ll never prevent us from getting together again!” I asked my mother what she thought. “It is your affair now. I shall watch you.” The clock struck. * * * * * _January 1st, 1919._ This year people dare not wish each other a happy New Year. They murmur something, then cast their eyes down with a strange expression, as if they were looking into an open grave. Kassa has been occupied by the Czechs! Under the tower of its old cathedral, down in the crypt, Rákoczi’s skeleton hands are clenched and he asks: “Is it for this that you brought my body back from Turkey?” On the same day the Hungarian troops left Pressburg at the instigation of the confidential men of the Budapest Soldiers’ Council. The local Workers’ Council thereupon assumed control, and to-day, on New Year’s day, the Italian Colonel Ricardo Barecca entered the town at the head of a Czech regiment. On the bank of the Danube, beside a marble equestrian statue of Maria Theresa, two Hungarians stand with “_Moriamur pro rege nostro_” on their lips: did they cast their eyes down in shame, is it only the stones that still say this in Pressburg? Meanwhile the Government informs the country with pacificist satisfaction that: “in order to avoid bloodshed the armed forces of the popular government have retired everywhere.” During the last few weeks the life of us Hungarians has been like an attempt to climb out of a putrid well into daylight. We have toiled painfully upwards, we have made desperate efforts to escape the slimy horrors of the water, but in vain. The wall of the well, like a slippery drain, grows higher above our heads, the water rises behind us, and there is no escape. Slimy stagnant water, beastliness, utter beastliness. Yesterday Mackensen was surrounded by French Spahis in the castle of Fóth. He is now guarded like a criminal, and people are saying that Károlyi is responsible for this. It is an old-established custom with us that on New-Year’s day the Prime Minister should make a speech, retrospective and prospective. Michael Károlyi delivered his speech this morning. He accused the past and renounced the future, accused the old system of being responsible for all our misfortunes, and, as the only means of salvation, proclaimed his feeble-minded hobby: “We must seek help for Hungary’s cause in pacificism, for in that name alone shall we conquer.... Should pacificism fail, then I say: _finis Hungariæ_.”