Béla Kun presided autocratically over the assembly. Whenever anything began to go contrary to his desires a motion of his hand closed the debate. On the last day but one ninety-seven members had put down questions, but he shouted at them that he was fed up with their talk and in twenty-four hours he hustled the Communist Constitution through. The Soviet members of the capital attacked those of the provinces; they clamoured that it was their fault that the capital was starving, why did they tolerate all the counter-revolutions? The provincial members, on the other hand, declared that the Communist administration was bankrupt, was worse than any other, and finally left the place as a protest. The wind was already veering and only Béla Kun’s terrorism saved the Directorate. The Commissaries were shouting: “We won’t stand the preaching of pogroms in the Soviet!” There was great excitement. William Böhm declared that an anti-Semitic pogrom putsch had been started in Budapest two days ago. [Illustration: THE LIBRARY OF COUNT GEORGE SZÁPÁRY AFTER THE REDS HAD BEEN THROUGH IT. ] The Commander-in-Chief held forth in gloomy strains: “Though the Red army is gaining victory after victory, the situation is not altogether rosy....” On the 2nd of May, he declared, amidst frenzied applause, the People’s Commissaries and the members of the Workers’ Council were to proceed to the front. “Our publicity agents have spread the news over the country, yet the comrades still stick tight to Budapest. If Eugene Landler with his twenty stone can climb hills and lie in trenches under fire, surely the others can do their duty too, otherwise the Proletarian soldier will no longer believe in Proletarian equality.” Then the Red Commander shouted in despair: “The reserves have not turned up. If this goes on for another four weeks, Vágó, Landler and Pogány can go into the trenches under my leadership if they like, but there won’t be any soldiers left....” I pictured the scene and could not help laughing at its absurdity. I could see the twenty-stone mass of Landler, and Pogány’s terrific circumference protruding from the trenches, while Comrade Böhm, the typewriter agent, with his Field Marshal’s baton elegantly held to his hip, stands over them, the shadow of his legs throwing an O on the deserted landscape. “A grandiose historical group,” ‘The People’s Voice’ described it. Just so. My friends heard me laughing, came into my room, and laughed too. The children, who hadn’t seen anybody laugh for a long time, could not understand what had happened to us, so they, too, burst out laughing. “And this is the gang which rules over us!”... The laughter stopped suddenly and there was silence—the same silence as yesterday and the days before that. The children stopped laughing too, and shyly left the room....