It is a good time for prophets just now. When life becomes unbearable and every moment a torture, in despair men snatch at prophecies and look to the future. Every day new prophets and prophetesses appear. Their oracles are published by the newspapers and spread by word of mouth. Fear longs to be alleviated. Somebody says “It is possible;” the next repeats it as “I believe;” and with the third it becomes “I know.” The sufferers are not content to stop there, however, but proceed to fix a time-limit for the realisation of their predictions. At one moment they are concerned with the impending rising of the Communists, at another with the outbreak of the counter-revolution. The beginning of the Red Revolution was predicted for to-day, but it has been postponed. Now it is fixed for the 5th of February. People comfort each other by saying that within two hours the Spahis stationed in the neighbourhood can be brought to town and that there is no need to be alarmed. Others have reliable information that on the 6th or the 9th our party will begin its long-prepared offensive. In the streets the _agents-provocateurs_ of Pogány ask young men: “Are you thinking of the 9th of February?” then add in a whisper: “We meet to-night behind the Museum.” And while the surface bubbles in this fashion, both we and they are doing really serious work in the depths below. The young people in town are ready and so are the awakening Hungarians, the Széklers and the Transylvanian Hungarians. Our _liaisons_ with the countryside are established. We have weapons and determination and are exasperated beyond endurance. But it is vital that all these organisations should start action at the same moment, for we must not waste our ammunition on sporadic shots; it must be a volley. One hour must strike for all of us. There is great tension in the air. In Károlyi’s camp they are conscious of our surreptitious preparations and Károlyi fears them more than the constantly increasing agitation of the Communists. The possibilities of our movement are more hateful to him and cause him more anxiety than the activity of Béla Kún, although the Communists are not particular what tools they use, and are now agitating quite openly. Here in the capital they are making use of a curious trick. From mid-January on, their street orators have been advising the mob not to pay any rent to the landlords on next quarter day, i.e., February 1st. Why should they? Are not the houses theirs? Fortunately the majority of the people kept their heads, and only about some twenty tenants in the suburbs refused to pay rent, so the riots and the projected Communist rising did not come off, for the present at any rate. “It has failed this time,” said John Hock, the President of the National Council, to one of my friends, “but the Red terror is bound to come in Hungary! It will last about two years, and then the old set, whom we kicked out in October, will have to restore order.”