What was going on there? Nobody troubled about it, and the newspapers wrote long articles about the Spanish “flu.” The epidemic was serious, people met their friends at funerals, but the newspapers exaggerated intentionally; they published alarming statistics and reported that the undertakers could not cope with the situation: people had to be buried by torchlight at night. The panic-stricken crowd could scarcely think of anything else. The terror of the epidemic was everywhere, and the greater terror which threatened, the brewing revolution, was hidden by it. The press, as if working to order, hypnotised the public with the ghost of the epidemic while it belittled the misfortunes of the unfortunate nation and rocked its anxiety to sleep by raising foolish, false hopes of a good peace, and gushed over Károlyi’s connections with the Entente. And so the big, unwieldy mass of citizens slid towards the precipice in its sleep. There came an awful day. We learned that as the result of the insidious propaganda of Károlyi’s agents and his press, a Hungarian division and a Viennese regiment had laid down their arms.... It was through this break that the forces of the Entente had crossed the Piave. Our forces repelled them in a supreme effort. Then the English tanks came into play. These were too much for the nerves of our men, whose discipline had been slackened by several months’ intrigue. They mutinied, and it was reported that in the confusion General Wurm was killed by his own men. In Budapest the papers which appeared were blanked heavily by the exertions of the censor, but in the streets people already spoke openly of the National Council and proclaimed loudly that one could take the oath of allegiance to it at the rooms of Károlyi’s party. There was an astonishing number of soldiers in the crowd. I noticed then for the first time how many sailors walked the streets. Where did these come from? Next day was Sunday, October the 27th. I recollect clearly that I did not leave the house. Within the last few days most of the inhabitants of the villas in our neighbourhood had moved in haste in to the town. It was quiet, and I pruned the shrubs in our garden.