The village listens, tense under the Red posters which disfigure its walls. It listens abstractedly, as though trying to hide its thoughts, and behind closed doors and windows people put their heads together. Stories born of desire are spreading, but the insufferable thought that we are in need of help from the Rumanians dominates our imagination and hopes: “The national army has already left Szeged!... Whole Red regiments have passed over and have laid down their arms. White Hungarian troops will come with the Rumanians. Perhaps to-morrow.... In Budapest the commander of the garrison has prepared the population for a general alarm should the Dictatorship of the Proletariat be in danger. The whole town is covered with posters.... An hour after the alarm has been sounded nobody must be in the streets. Soldiers must hurry to their barracks, workmen to their respective headquarters. Within an hour from the alarm all electric trams must be withdrawn.... All shops and public offices must be closed at once, as well as the doors and windows of houses. Simultaneously with the alarm martial law will be declared.” Such preparations have never been made before, either in May when the Rumanians attacked, or in June during the Counter-revolution. Those who come from Budapest speak of the disruption of the Red army as it retires, of its anarchy, of mutinies of Terror detachments, of Számuelly’s autocracy. It is impossible to get a clear picture of what is happening: “The White army is approaching! The Rumanians are advancing from the Tisza!” One can hear the crackling and collapsing of the Dictatorship. The powers of the Entente have sent a note, and the Cabinet has felt obliged to publish it in its press. This note is no longer addressed to the Soviet or the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. At last, then, the Allied and Associated Powers are going to address themselves to the Hungarian people! Under the title: ‘Declaration of the Entente on the Blockade!’ the Red press screens the Note of the Powers in which they declare: “We sincerely desire to make peace with the Hungarian people....” But peace can only be concluded if the Hungarian people is represented by a Government which “represents really the will of the people, and not by one whose power rests on terror.” It has taken the Entente Powers four and a half months to come to this decision! No wonder they have been slow to discredit Béla Kun, for, after Károlyi, he has rendered them invaluable service. He has ruined and robbed Hungary of her last sources of strength. Now they can take possession of the booty which is no longer capable of offering resistance and can pay with our thousand years’ old possessions the war bills presented to them by their little allies. * * * * * _August 1st._