So the pathless garden has appealed to another unfortunate. He too would like to escape, but cannot; he too would like to hope, and there is nothing to hope for. What is in store for us? Every attempt we have made has broken down, our hopes from abroad, our hopes from our own efforts. The Red press is howling for blood. “Death to the bandits of the Counter-revolution!” The greater part of Hungary’s aristocracy fled abroad in March: the Hungarian peasantry keeps obstinately silent on its isolated farms, in its sequestered villages. So there are none left for a counter-revolution but those who for a thousand years have borne the weight of our destinies. Once they were the electors of kings, when they were known as the gentry, later as the educated classes, and to-day as the middle classes. They have always been to the fore when death or toil was demanded of them, and always in the background when royal favours and grants were distributed; but never have they been mediocre in fibre. This class will be for ever the trunk of the oak, the power that supports the tree and stands up against the blows of the axe, yet does not receive the rays of the sun. Now the axe has fallen. Men were wanted who dared to die, and in Budapest the first attempt at a counter-revolution flared up. But somebody betrayed it, and those caught were sentenced to life-long imprisonment and their leaders executed. Then came the news that the ‘Cabinet’ had sent to the Hungarian Legation in Vienna one hundred and forty million crowns to finance a revolution; whereupon Hajób, the Secretary of the Legation, and the patriotic Hungarian employees stormed the Communist Legation. The money fell into the hands of the counter-revolutionaries. ‘The Red Newspaper’ foamed as it reported the matter. Our hopes rose. It was said that over twenty thousand Hungarians, able to bear arms, were in Vienna, and in our imagination the right bank of the Danube was already aflame. People whispered: “the Hungarians of Vienna have started, it is only a question of days and they will knock over the Dictatorship.” Then one night about fifty officers crossed the frontier—and were disarmed by the Austrian frontier guards. Still there was hope. The ideals of the Budapest conspiracy survived its martyrs. The thread was not dropped. Brave men began once more to organise. It was decided that the aeroplane which was to give the signal for the rising was to fly over Budapest on the 4th of May at three o’clock in the morning. On the eve of the event a few officers, confident of victory, appeared in a restaurant with white roses and with restored decorations and insignia of rank, and made the gypsy band play the national anthem. This stupid demonstration naturally aroused the attention of spies, and the same night Colonel Dormándy, Captain Horváth and several brave officers and officials were arrested.