We tried to inform Signora Türr of the situation, but Károlyi’s ministers had preceded us. They had betrayed themselves. Signora Türr spoke of them with the greatest contempt and promised to inform her government of the country’s desperate plight. “Why, what you have got here amounts practically to Bolshevism....” Practically! * * * * * _February 28th._ It seemed quite unusual to have been in society again, without any serious cause or purpose, for nothing special, just as we used to in old times. Countess Mikes gave a tea party in honour of Stephanie Türr. Loafing soldiers on the look-out gathered round the entrance when we arrived. Where are the old times? Where are the homes that knew no care? Electric lights dimmed in silken shades, the dainty lines of beautiful dresses, Paris scents, the smoke of Egyptian cigarettes; flowers, a shower of flowers——. Now there are last Spring’s dresses, dim light, scanty heating, cigarettes of a coarse tobacco. Scents exist no more, and in a wide-necked vase three miserable, sad flowers. Hungarian society no longer has a social life. Those who can amuse themselves in these times are not Hungarians. Salons are dead, they have become the meeting-place of embittered conspirators where people talk to each other and then look anxiously behind them. Practically every Hungarian house is spied upon by its own servants. We know it but cannot remedy it. Everything has changed, even conversation. In former times it turned on human interests, music, theatres, books, distant towns, foreign countries, acquaintances. Now we ask each other “What was it like in jail? Have they searched your house yet? I thought you had been arrested.” And if somebody says “I’m glad to see you” it has a different meaning from what it used to have. Count Albert Apponyi passed smiling and came up and shook my hands warmly. “So you are still free!...” I met Stephanie Türr once more before she left, and talked to her in the hall of the Hotel Bristol. She gave me a solemn promise; she will try to help us when she gets home. The Italian officer who had been given her as an escort for her personal safety, said nervously: “Signora, you are watched. There are detectives here.” Then he spoke so low that I could hardly hear him. “_E pericoloso_,” and he winked and nodded to me. “Be careful, we can leave, but those unfortunates who remain here are playing with their lives.” I felt as if there were only two kinds of humanity in the world: those who are happy and those who are unfortunate. And these foreigners look upon us as if they were looking, half in pity, half in curiosity, through the grating of a mortuary. CHAPTER XVII. _March 1st-5th._