One more storm and the fury of the betrayed people will break through the dams. The people has recovered its memory; it remembers who exploited it during the war, who enriched himself by Hungary’s disaster, who dragged it into the terrible peace, into civil war and death. The air is resonant with this new consciousness, conceived in blood. In the great plain one can hear metallic clicks which bode danger: with set teeth the Hungarian peasantry is sharpening its scythes; and the edge is not meant for the crops, for the peasant looks towards Budapest. The news has been spreading for days. In the county of Pest counter-revolution has flared up. Aszód and Pécel have risen, Cumania and the whole length of the banks of the Danube are in ferment. It started on the 19th of June, on the feast of Corpus Christi, and the tocsin carried the news from village to village along the banks of the Danube. The peasants took their scythes, tore up the railways and cut the telephone wires. The Directorate took to flight and the Red Guards surrendered and ran for their lives. Kalocsa, Duna-pataj, Dömsöd, Tas, Lacháza ... names that sound like ancient Hungarian music. They are ringing with the sound of Hungarian hopes ... Hungarian scythes. * * * * * _June 25th._ It was long after midnight when I heard steps coming from the direction of the railway station. A voice said in the street: “There will be no trains for Budapest to-morrow.” The news spread in the morning—nobody knew who had brought it, it just came suddenly. _The Counter-revolution has broken out in Budapest!_ Imagination supplied the rest. The Hungarians working for us in Vienna ... a railway strike ... the names of villages and counties ... all along the Danube ... the whole of Western Hungary, Szeged.... The Whites are marching with fifty thousand men from Szeged towards Budapest. Stories inspired by hope. Then somebody came from Vácz, bringing news. Yesterday at four o’clock in the afternoon four cannon-shots were heard in the direction of Budapest. The cannonade increased. People ran down to the banks of the Danube and listened with their ears to the ground. Many stuck ribbons of the national colours in their coats. There is a counter-revolution in Budapest! The barracks rose against the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and most of the factories joined in. The monitors on the Danube shelled and destroyed the Hotel Hungaria, which had become Soviet House. The ships hoisted the national flag, and white flags are floating from the castle, from Mount Gellert, from the houses of Buda. A fierce joy seized me and I wanted to get out of bed, I felt ill no longer. Then ... nothing especial happened and yet things began to lose their brightness. Evening came. We laughed no more and suspense became pain.