Hungary -- History -- Revolution, 1918-1919 -- Personal narratives; Tormay, Cécile, 1876-1937 -- Diaries
The little office was filled with the spirit of winning gamblers. We
concluded that the domiciliary visits had been a failure. I went home
with my mind at rest. But that afternoon I had another visitor, Count
Emil Dessewffy, whose house had been searched too.
“I’m glad you got over it without trouble,” I said.
“Yes,” said Dessewffy, “but,”—and he took his single eyeglass out of his
eye, then replaced it suddenly—“but there has been a slight misfortune.
The searchers found nothing implicating anybody. They took only one
letter—yours!”
At first I did not know what letter he referred to. Then I remembered.
I had written to Dessewffy in connection with the women’s memorandum,
when I had been knocked off the tram and was ill, and in it I had written
about Kingship, about the crown. I had passed judgment on men and events
and had mentioned and stigmatised Károlyi, Jászi, Hock, Kunfi, Pogány
and the whole Social Democracy of Budapest, as being the protagonists
of Bolshevik world-rule. I remembered that even when I sent the letter
it occurred to me that if it fell into the wrong hands it would entail
retaliation.
Dessewffy seemed more upset about it than I.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “at least they will know what I think of them.”
* * * * *
_February 9th._
And they did know.
It happened quicker than I expected. From the hands of the Police my
letter passed into those of the Socialist party’s secretariat and thence
to Joseph Pogány. I got reliable information of the whole thing—someone
came to see me this morning. He asked me never to mention his name,
and told me to be careful, as I was being watched and my telephone
conversations listened to.
In town more and more requisitions are being made, and there have
been many arrests, among others one of the leaders of the Awakening
Hungarians, some officials of the War Office, the organisers of the armed
force of the Territorial’s Defence League, and Madame Sztankay, one
of the bravest women of the counter-revolution; all have been sent to
prison. The stone cast by the County meeting of Fehérvár has made wider
and wider rings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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