An outlaw's diary: revolution

The town was preparing for the Day of the Dead, and white chrysanthemums were being sold at the street corners. A mad, black crowd carried the flowers with it. This year there w...

The telephone rang in the corridor, sharply, aggressively, as if the town was shouting out to us among the woods. It was with reluctance that I put the receiver to my ear.

It was long after midnight before my mother’s door closed. I hung a silk handkerchief over the lamp so that its light might not be seen from outside and then I went through the...

The house stood amid a sad, grey morning. Through the fog a continuous drizzle was heard in the woods, and along the road a muddy stream gurgled in the broken gutter. The people...

A raven sat on a branch of the chestnut tree. It did not fly away when I opened my window, but sat there like a stuffed bird and stared with half-closed eyes into the yard. Near...

I feel so queer. I feel as though there were an open wound in my head from which blood was spreading over my thoughts. How long can one bear this kind of thing? Something must h...

The tram to our hills was practically empty. Everybody has come to town and the houses stand abandoned. The strokes of axes resound in the woods, and trembling townspeople steal...

In front of one of the big schools sailors were lined up in a row. A company, armed to the teeth, stood in the middle of the road. People looked at each other curiously, anxious...

Hours passed by. Suddenly I heard a loud buzzing overhead and an aeroplane flew through the grey air over the streets. Parliament at this moment is proclaiming the Republic—Káro...

To-day the newspapers are full of the complaints of Károlyi’s government. The government has sent protesting telegrams to the Allies, the Czechs, the Roumanians. It appeals to t...

The Széklers in Transylvania have risen; the flag of the Székler’s corps has been unfurled, and Count Stephen Bethlen has organised a Székler National Council. Transylvania is g...

My way took me through the garden of the old Polytechnic. The place was black with people. In the great hall of the ‘Stork’s Fort’ Széklers and Transylvanian Hungarians were gat...

Everyone I have spoken to within the last few days has expressed anger and disgust over Mackensen’s arrest. Countess Raphael Zichy told me she met Michael Károlyi accidentally,...

That ghost has been haunting us too long: it must be laid. Ever since I met this ever-recurring cause of our nation’s defeat in the Franciscans’ house, my language to the women...

It almost seems as if the terrible eye of the magician who has kept the town in bondage is beginning to lose its power. The country tied to the stake is freeing its hands from i...

As one looks back on distant days they seem to melt into one like a row of men moving away, and yet they passed singly and each had its own individuality. Long ago the days smil...

Winter is still with us, but the winds bring signs of awakening from afar. March ... the month of fevers and commotions. On the earth fatigue and restlessness chase each other....