I shuddered in my helpless solitude amidst the crowd that blackened the square, where men suffered everything, cheered the negation of their existence, and pledged themselves to their own destruction. The sound of trumpets rose. The military band struck up a tune. What was it?... My heart nearly stopped beating when I realised what it was. The great revolutionary song of a strange people rose above the square, the national anthem of a nation which had been our enemy during the war, which led on the revengeful victors who were preparing to trample us beneath their feet. A hymn of rebellion, which they play in the beflagged towns on the banks of the Seine and the Marne to proclaim their victory, a tune which means glory to them, humiliation to us. If the French nation had succumbed to German arms, would they play this day _Deutschland, Deutschland über alles_ on the Place de la Concorde? To what depth have you sunk, Hungarian men? I set my teeth and pressed my suffering down into my heart. And the grandiose strains of the Marseillaise floated over my head. Their beauty I heard not. To me the notes were but the guffaws of a scornful melody that roared derision over the square. The clarions sounded brazen yells of contempt, the rolling of the drums emphasised their mockery, and the cymbals applauded—applauded our defeat.... And the crowd cheered Károlyi. The soldiers went back to the City. The interrupted traffic thronged over the shining asphalt. Carriages drove by. Small groups vanished in the distant streets. Slowly the square became empty. A few constables remained on duty in front of the House of Parliament; people waited at the stopping place of the tram. The woman with the duck’s neck and the Transylvanian youth were there too. We waited. The House of Parliament relapsed into its grave silence. The bronze figure of the horseman near the shore was invisible. Had it gone, was it still there? I hesitated. There, on the other side, towards the bridge, near the river, the embankment was bare. There never had been a statue there. But the wraith of a giant whose blood was spilt on October 31st is slowly groping his way towards it. His chest is pierced by a bullet, his heart’s blood has flowed away. He goes slowly, but he will get there—when the day comes. The Transylvanian young man and the woman near me were both staring at the shore. I had no intention of speaking aloud yet I said: “That is where Stephen Tisza’s monument is going to stand.” [Illustration: SOLDIERS TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE TO KÁROLYI’S NATIONAL COUNCIL. (_To face p. 62._)] The woman was horribly frightened. “Please, don’t say things like that. The people hate him frightfully.” “But why should they hate him so?” “He was the cause of the war; the soldier who killed him said so.” “His monument is going to stand there.”