The People’s Commissaries ... Trotski and Lenin’s henchmen in Hungary! So now the rebellion which dubbed itself the national revolution dares to speak openly of these! Everything here is being ordered after the Russian pattern. In the barracks the men of the garrison have dismissed their officers, elected representatives, and constituted Soldiers’ Councils, which are developing into a new power. The head of this new power is a socialist journalist called Joseph Pogány-Schwarz. The vice-presidents are Imre Csernyák, a cashiered officer, and Teodor Sugár-Singer, a Galileist with a shady past. Pogány has declared that “the military council can have only one programme: the final abolition of the army!” and while day by day he arms more workmen with the help of the socialist party organisation, he dissolves feverishly the old Hungarian army. Nor does the Minister of War remain inactive: he has organised Zionist guards and has armed the members of the Maccabean Club. Ladislaus Fényes, who from being a journalist has turned into the Government Commissary of National Guards, has enlisted and equipped more and more vagabonds and escaped convicts with sailors’ uniforms. [Illustration: JOSEPH POGÁNY _alias_ SCHWARTZ. (_To face p. 70._)] A motor-car passed me, going slowly. It was a beautiful car and its window was ornamented with a label: “National property, to be protected.” Near the label, inside the car, I saw the face of Michael Károlyi. I was in no laughing mood, yet I could not help laughing at this. “National property!”... The nation must be in a sad plight indeed. “To be protected!”... Is that the only thing which is to receive protection? By Károlyi’s side his wife was visible. Now and then there was a cheer—“The King’s car,” said somebody near me. I felt suddenly sick. He goes about in the King’s car and is cheered. Stephen Tisza travels in a hearse and stones are hurled at him. The face of Tisza appeared so vividly in my thoughts that it seemed to stand before me.... I remembered a summer afternoon during the war. Mixing with the crowd, Tisza came towards me in a light summer suit. The descendant of a long line of horsemen he was slender and looked young; his shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, but his face was worn and as if shrunken with grief. Deep wrinkles ran to the corners of his mouth, and as I recollected him I thought of the strong, sad look in his eyes and the movements of his shoulders. Only his shoulders moved; he walked with an easy, elastic gait, as if he were strolling along a forest path, and his hands swung lightly....