Free The Phoenix Land by Miklós Bánffy Page B

called me he announced three things: my bath had been prepared, revolution had broken out, and Count Mihály Károlyi was now Minister-President.
    Soon afterwards István Zichy came to see me and related what he had seen and heard outside in the streets, and together we went out onto Museum Boulevard.
    Most of the shops were closed, and there were many people just standing about on the pavement. It looked as if all thecleaners and domestic servants of the district were there, standing about in groups of five or six before each doorway, openmouthed and gaping, just as Zichy and I were doing along with countless other citizens who had streamed out to gaze around in wonder.
    It was both interesting and amusing. Everyone seemed in festive mood, smiling and wearing white asters 7 .
    Enterprising youths from the suburbs were selling the flowers, and should anyone dare to refuse to buy the friendly offers were soon suffused with unconcealed menace. Resistance to these offers swiftly melted away. However, very few did refuse for man is a Herdentier – an animal that always follows the herd, a gregarious animal – and quickly follows its neighbour’s example. It may well have been us two, Zichy and myself, who alone failed to pin on the symbolic flower, but this was not from mere contrariness but because it went against our nature blindly to endorse such trivial emblems. Anyhow, even without us, there were plenty of asters to be seen on the passers-by, on the sightseers standing in the doorways and decorating some shop windows, just as there were on some heavy army weapon-carriers which suddenly appeared among the crowd and just as suddenly rumbled away. Some of these were lavishly decorated with their rusty sides, radiators and headlights garlanded with white flowers. By contrast the army vehicles were packed with sooty-faced, heavily armed soldiers. People ran alongside wildly as the great lorries were driven directly into the crowd, regardless of anyone or anything that might be in their way. None could tell if they were hurrying to some unknown goal or were roaming the streets at random.
    The crowd was in far too festive a mood to be worried by any of this, nor did anyone seem to notice that among the many soldiers wandering about so aimlessly there were a number, heavily armed, their tunics unbuttoned and dirtier than any I had seen even on the worst days at the Front. Some seemed merely to be seeking a sympathetic listener to whom they could explain in hoarse voices, perhaps for the umpteenth time, what heroic deeds they had done that night. There were others who, dead tired, tramped mechanically on like the solitary ant who has losthis way back to the heap and pauses, looking around in bewilderment . No one bothered about any of these men, even though they all carried loaded rifles and were hung with hand grenades. The crowd was in too festive a mood to be worried, indeed most of them seemed to rejoice in the soldiers’ presence, as in everything else that day, for was it not the same for them as for everyone else? All that anyone could take in was that the terrible war was over, that now there would be no more flour tickets and food rations, and that peace would come again, at long last peace, wonderful peace. No worries, no anxiety clouded their exuberant joy, for did not every danger and every misery belong to the past, that evil past which must now be utterly forgotten? From this very day the future would hold nothing but brotherly love and friendship … and peace, wonderful peace.
    Zichy and I, who also saw these soldiers from whom every vestige of discipline seemed to have drained away, were filled with trepidation at the thought of what would happen if this disintegration spread to the whole of the armed forces. For a while we saw nothing encouraging, but then we were faced with a wonderful example of enduring discipline and courage, a beautiful act that only we had witnessed and would remember.
    A young officer