Eyes Like the Sea Part 16

That was the sort of oratory I used to practise in those days!

Meanwhile the rain began to fall, and rain is the most reactionary opponent of every revolution. But my people were not to be dispersed by the rain, and all at once the whole street was filled with expanded umbrellas.

"What! gentlemen," thundered I from the corner of the street, "if you stick up your umbrellas now against mere rain-drops, what will you stick up against the bullets which will presently begin to fall?"

It was only then that I noticed that there were not only gentlemen around me but ladies also. A pair of them had insinuated themselves close to my side. In one of them I recognised "Queen Gertrude."[49] On her head she wore a plumed cap, and was wrapped up in a Persian shawl embroidered with palm-tree flowers. Both cap and shawl were dripping with rain. I had met the lady once or twice at the Szigligetis'. I exhorted the ladies to go home; here they would get dripping-wet, I said, and some other accident might befall them.

[Footnote 49: _i.e._, the actress who took that part.]

"We are no worse off here than you are," was the reply.

They were determined to wait till the printed broad-sides were ready.

Not very long afterwards Irinyi appeared at the window of the printing-office, for to get out of the door was a sheer impossibility.

He held in his hands the first printed sheets from the free press.

Ah, that scene! when the very first free sheets were distributed from hand to hand! I cannot describe it. "Freedom, freedom!" It was the first ray of a new and better era!... A free press! the first-fruit of the universal tree of knowledge of Paradise. What a tumult arose when they actually clutched that forbidden fruit in their hands.... Hail to thee, O Freedom of the Press! Thou seven-headed dragon, how many times hast thou not bitten me since then! Yet I bless the hour when I first saw thee creep out of thy egg and gave thee what little help I could!

Young authors, clerks, advocates, all hot-headed young people, crowded around the invisible banner.

A young county official was now seen forcing his way through the dense crowd right to the very door of the printing-office, and from thence he addressed me. The influential Vice-Lieutenant of the County, Paul Nyary, sent word to me that I was to go to him to the town hall.

"Why _should_ I go?" cried I from my point of vantage. "I'll be shot down with cannon-b.a.l.l.s rather! If the Vice-Lieutenant of the County wants to speak to us, let him come here. We are the 'mountain' now."

And Mohammed really did come to the "mountain," and with him came a group of grave-faced men, the veteran leaders of the camp of freedom.

Amongst them was a dwarfish little oddity of a man, the a.s.sistant editor of the _Eletkepek_, the gallant little Sukey, who, despite a chronic asthma, fought through the whole campaign, musket in hand. Besides being a cripple, he was a really extraordinary stammerer. When he saw the grave-visaged men making their way to us through the crowd, he scrambled along beside them, and with all the force of his lungs bellowed out this notable declaration: "D-d-d-don't li-li-li-listen to those wi-wi-wi-wiseacres!"

But the wiseacres hadn't come to convert us to wisdom. On the contrary, Nyary had come to approve of what we had done hitherto, and then to go together with us to the town hall, that they might there, together with the town councillors, ratify the Articles of the liberal programme.

It was a fine scene. The town hall was crammed to suffocation. Those who were called upon to speak stood upon the green table, and remained there afterwards, so that at last the whole magistracy of the county, and I and all my colleagues were standing on the top of the table. The flames spread! The burgomaster, the worthy Rotterbiller, announced from the balcony of the town hall, that the town of Pest had adopted the Twelve Articles as its own; and with that the avalanche carried the whole of the burgesses along with it. But the matter did not end even there. In the evening crowds of workmen inundated the streets. They had got from somewhere or other a banner, inscribed with the three sacred words, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!"

... Such a great day must needs have a brilliant close, so the town was illuminated in the evening, and a free performance was given at the theatre, _Bank-ban_[50] being the piece selected. But the mob, which by this time was in a state of ecstasy, had no longer the patience to listen to the pious declamations of Ban Peter. It called for "Talpra Magyar."

[Footnote 50: Joseph Katona's celebrated tragedy.]

What was to be done? The brilliant court of King Andrew II., with the Queen and Bank-ban to boot, had to stand aside and form a group round Gabriel Egressy, who, in a simple attila, with a sword by his side, stood in the middle of the stage and declaimed with magnificent emphasis Petofi's inspiring poem.

That was all very well, but it was not enough.

Then the whole company sang the "Szozato," and the people in the pit and the galleries joined in.

That also was soon over.

What shall we give next?

The band struck up the Rakoczy[51] march. That kindled the excitement, instead of extinguis.h.i.+ng it. And it was high time that something should be done to quench it, for the excited populace was drunk with triumph.

[Footnote 51: Prohibited in Hungary at this time as being of revolutionary tendency.]

Then a voice from the gallery cried: "Long live Tancsis!"[52]

[Footnote 52: Michal Tancsis, a prisoner who had been released from the citadel of Buda the same morning by the mob.]

And with that the whole populace suddenly roared with one voice: "Let us see Tancsis!"

A frightful tumult arose. Tancsis was not at hand. He lived some way out in the suburb of Ferenczvaros. But even had he been near, it would have been a cruel thing to have dragged on the stage a worn-out invalid, that he might merely bow to the public like a celebrated musician.

But what was to be done?

"Well, my sons," said Nyary, with whom I was standing in the same box, "you have awakened this great monster, now see if you can put him to sleep again!"

My young friends attempted to address the people one after the other, Petofi from the Academy box, Irinyi from the balcony of the Casino club, but their voices were drowned in the howling of the mob. The curtain was let down, but then the tumult was worse than ever; the gallery stamped like mad; it was a perfect pandemonium.

Then a thought occurred to me. I could get on to the stage from Nyary's box; I rushed in through the side wings.

I cut a pretty figure I must say. I was splashed up to the knees with mud from scouring the streets all day. I wore huge, dirty overshoes, my tall hat was drenched, so that I could easily have made a crush-hat of it and carried it under my arm.

I looked around me and perceived Egressy. I told him to draw up the curtain, I wanted to harangue the people from the stage.

Then "Queen Gertrude" came towards me. She smiled upon me with truly majestic grace, greeted me and pressed my hand. No sign of fear was to be seen in her face. She was wearing the tricoloured c.o.c.kade[53] on her bosom, and, of her own accord, she took it off and pinned it on my breast. Then the curtain was raised.

[Footnote 53: Red, white, and green, the Hungarian colours.]

When the mob beheld my drenched and muddy figure, it began to shout afresh, and the uproar gradually became a call for every one to hear me.

When at last I was able to make my voice heard, I came out with the following oratorical masterpiece: "Brother citizens! our friend Tancsis is not here. He is at home in the bosom of his family. Allow the poor blind man to taste the joy of _seeing_ his family once more!"

It was only then that I felt I was talking nonsense. How could a "_blind_ man" _see_ his family? If the mob began to laugh I should be done for!

It was the tricoloured ribbon that saved me.

"Do you see," I cried, "this tricoloured c.o.c.kade on my breast? Let it be the badge of this glorious day! Let every man who is Freedom's warrior wear it; it will distinguish us from the hireling host of slavery! These three colours represent the three sacred words: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! Let every one in whom Hungarian blood and a free spirit burns wear them on his breast."

And so the thing was done.

The tricoloured c.o.c.kade preserved order. Whoever wished to pin on the tricoloured c.o.c.kade had to hurry home first. Ten minutes later the theatre was empty, and next day the tricoloured c.o.c.kade was to be seen on every breast, from the paletots of the members of the Casino[54] to the buckram of the populace, and those who went about with mantles on wore the c.o.c.kade in their hats.

[Footnote 54: The n.o.bles' club.]

In the intoxication of my triumph I hastened after Rosa Laborfalvy as soon as this scene was over, and pressed her hand.

With that pressure of our hands our engagement began.

I have recorded the whole of this episode in order to explain how it was that _that_ portrait found its way to my table, which was able to convert in an instant the smiling face of the lady with the eyes like the sea into the hideous features of Iblis. Four months had pa.s.sed away since then.

And the honeymoon was in keeping with the engagement. The roar of cannon and the clash of swords was the music that played at my wedding.

Oh what a marriage night was that!