The head of the Directorium of Balassagyarmat returned yesterday from Budapest. Huszár heard him relating proudly in the street that he had spoken with Béla Kun himself. The position of the Soviet Republic has been considerably strengthened abroad and at home, and the economic conditions are excellent. Béla Kun has declared that he has such a reserve in jewels, pearls, medals and art treasures that there was no bourgeois Government in the world that could compete with him. Negotiations are on foot for the disposal, in Holland, of these treasures. Huszár’s next statement filled me with shame and anger. Béla Kun was bargaining with foreign antiquaries for the sale of the Holy Hungarian Crown! It is said they offered him 170,000 crowns for it. The stones are second-rate, the gold is thin, there is just the historical value left. 170,000 crowns for the past glories of the Kings of Hungary! That is their value to-day. The Cabinet is still expectant: will anybody bid any more? And if one day there is a higher bidder, Béla Kun and Számuelly, Comrade Landler and the others, will open the iron-bound chest in the Coronation Chapel, lean over it, finger it, and the Jews will take Europe’s oldest royal crown[1] to the auction room. Will they have time to do it? I thought of what the president of the Balassagyarmat Directorate had said. They all talk as if they were to last for ever. Meanwhile, the other bank of the Ipoly, the hill with the vineyards, keeps silent. If things were to remain like this for long! The idea tortures me incessantly and forces me to think of my unhappy position. My hosts are hospitable, kind, touchingly so, but have I the right to accept their generosity? Aladár Huszár has given up his office, he declines to serve the Soviet. His wife’s jewels have been seized, they have no food coupons. What is consumed to-day cannot be replaced to-morrow. Every gift means a privation for them. And what if I should be found and arrested in their house! There are ten years of penal servitude in store for those who shelter me. I must do something. If there is no change presently I shall have to go. Have the waters of the Ipoly receded during the night? Perhaps the Czechs are not guarding the banks any longer? Perhaps the bridge is open? “Let us wait,” said Mrs. Huszár. “We confidently expect an attack to-night, and that would save you.” “Let us go and have a look. Maybe....” We walked slowly along the bank of the river. The air was clear and fresh and the wind rippled the flooded waters. A woman came along the road with a hamper over her arm and greeted us. “Do you come from the other bank?” The woman nodded: “We have a little field over there. But in future, from to-day, the Czechs have refused to let me pass. They shoot at anyone who approaches the bridge. They are preparing something.”