“Yes, I thought he must be,” Katalin said with commendable calmness.
“So, when will it be ready, this petition?” I asked, to distract his too penetrating gaze from Katalin. “Or will you be just like the Diet, unable to come to an agreement?”
“Oh no. It will be ready by Saturday.” I regarded him sceptically until his lips quirked in the fascinating half-smile that always left me weak. “Don’t you believe me? I’m always right about such things, you know.”
I rallied. “Such as Kossuth’s speech, which still waits upon the Lords’ pleasure?”
“No it doesn’t.” He had wanted me to bring that up. “The Lower House is sending it to the King anyway, without the Lords’ approval.”
I blinked. Katalin said with certainty, “They can’t do that. It’s illegal.”
“They’ll do it all the same. The Lords are not elected: they have no right to speak for the people.”
Katalin shivered. “Are you trying to cause chaos in the country?” It was a silly question, with only one answer.
“Yes,” he said, smiling. Katalin, it seemed, was taken back to her childhood.
“I hate you when you’re like this,” she said, frowning, but at this point I became distracted by Vasvári who had appeared beside us with Mattias.
“Has Lajos told you what we are doing?” he said as soon as I met his glittering gaze.
Pál Vasvári was a grave, clever youth, unfailingly polite and passionately intent upon his goals. He taught history at one of Pest’s more progressive schools and, like Lajos, he was astonishingly well-read for a man of his age; yet there was something rather unworldly behind his air of practicality. He seemed to regard me now almost as one of them; I didn’t know whether to be flattered or appalled.
“Yes,” I said easily. “You have acquired a large responsibility!”
“One we have long sought,” Vasvári said gravely. “The chance to speak for the people.”
Something almost fanatical in his youthful eyes made me say, “Be sure that you do.” Vasvári looked slightly taken aback, but when I glanced at Lajos, I saw his eyes alight with laughter. I could only guess that Vasvári in his excitement had needed taking down a peg, and I had been the thoughtless and unwitting instrument. Ignoring Katalin’s expression of boredom, I said hastily, “What are you going to ask for in this petition?”
Pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, Vasvári waved it in front of me, saying, “This is our first draft. It begins: What does the Hungarian nation wish? And underneath we list twelve demands — we’re still debating the precise order and wording — ending with Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!”
I drew in my breath, quickly sweeping my eyes over the document. “It goes rather further than the Opposition’s Declaration,” I observed. I glanced at Lajos. “I suspect it also goes a great deal further than the Opposition Circle asked of you.”
Lajos smiled. “What did you expect?”
“Will they use it?”
“We won’t ask them,” Vasvári said carelessly.
“Then they’ll repudiate it!”
“No; we have the people on our side, and that makes us far stronger.”
“How can you know that?”
Vasvári glanced at Lajos, then shrugged and said, “We’re going to organise a banquet in the French style, for the nineteenth of March when the peasants flock into Pest for the fair at Rákos.” His eyes gleamed. “We’ll unite all 40,000 of them at the banquet! Believe me, the Opposition will repudiate nothing.”
Even in this persuasive company, that was too much for me. I stared at Vasvári, feeling the blood drain out of my face. “My God, you would stir up 40,000 peasants to violence in Buda-Pest?”
“We won’t need to,” he said simply.
And I understood. Slowly, I turned my head and looked at Lajos, but I was seeing him not as he was now, relaxed, smiling, idly twisting his wine glass between his fingers, but as he had been on the night of the Szelényi Castle ball, the torch-light flickering over his grim face and his worn, peasant clothes as he stood at the head of that indescribably threatening line of people.
“You don’t need violence to make a revolution,” he had said the next day. “Only the threat of it.”
He met my gaze and saw that I had understood. He raised his glass in another silent toast.
I said, “I hope to God your calculations are correct.”
His lip twitched. “My dear, God will have nothing whatever to do with it.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The week passed on a wave of continuing excitement in the city, so that by Sunday, when nothing had happened, I began to think once more that nothing would. It seemed to me that the fear of revolution had grown stale.
Then, around noon on Tuesday, a servant gave me a message from Elisabeth asking me to bring the children downstairs for luncheon. This was a rare enough event to produce squeals of delight from Miklós and Anna, though I, having seen Baroness Meleki arrive earlier that morning, was rather less joyful.
However, when we entered the room, I was immediately alarmed by Elisabeth’s manner. There was a tinge of fear in her normally languid eyes, and she hugged the children to her almost compulsively. I paused, my hand still on the door knob, looking slowly from this maternal vignette to Teréz, whose whole demeanour shrieked of suppressed excitement. That alone was enough to frighten me.
“What is it?” I asked with sinking dread. “What has happened?”
Elisabeth looked at me over Anna’s fair head. “Vienna is in the hands of the mob,” she said unsteadily. Something lurched inside me. Italian revolts, French revolutions, they were somehow distantly exciting, but Vienna — Vienna was too close, and its significance extended far beyond Austria. If it was truly in the hands of a mob, no wonder Elisabeth was frightened. I found I had crossed the room and sat down at the table beside her. Thank God István had come home yesterday...
“Oh, come.” Teréz was amused. “It’s hardly as bad as that.”
Somewhat relieved, I met her gaze and demanded, “What exactly has happened?”
She began to help herself to cold meats. “Apparently, the Vienna students have been stirring up the people for days, mainly by reading them Kossuth’s speech. Then, yesterday morning, a group of them invaded the Estates’ meeting and forced it to send a mass delegation to the Emperor with a reform petition.”
I swallowed. “That doesn’t sound so very bad.”
“No, but at the same time the workers rose and indulged in an orgy of machine-breaking and arson. There were huge demonstrations which, inevitably, clashed with the soldiers.”
She chose her vegetables with care. Watching her, I asked slowly, “How many were hurt?” I knew what happened when soldiers met demonstrators.
“Forty or fifty, I think,” she said without much interest.
“Badly?”
She looked surprised. “Dead.”
I felt a chill spread through my bones. Was the cause of reform really worth fifty deaths? Was any cause? You didn’t need violence to make a revolution, according to Lajos, but it seemed it was always the result.
Teréz picked up her knife and fork, a note of triumph in her voice as she said, “But you haven’t heard the best of it yet. The Archdukes have dismissed old Metternich, that prop of the Ancien Régime himself! And of course, Kossuth is bound to take advantage — if he doesn’t push through all the liberal reforms now, he’s not half the man I know him to be!”
I dropped my gaze from Teréz, giving in at last to Anna’s insistent tugging on my arm. I helped her to some food, thinking as I did so how odd it was to be carrying on with such mundane little tasks when all over Europe the world we knew — an unjust, even a rotten world, I was prepared to admit — was crumbling around us with a speed I could never have guessed at when we celebrated the new year so blithely barely two months ago.
* * * *
The next day, the fifteenth of March, was a grey, wet Wednesday, a dull,
miserable day to look out on, yet it was destined to turn the whole country upside down.
It even began unusually, with Mattias leaving punctually for the university, voicing the gloomy opinion that he might as well since nothing more exciting seemed likely to happen. And then Katalin, looking distressed, begged my company on a quick, early-morning visit to her favourite hat shop. After one glance at her woeful countenance, I abandoned the children to Zsuzsa for an extra hour, and went with her to the shop.
The bonnet on which she had so earnestly desired my opinion was certainly a charming confection, and I had no hesitation in recommending her to buy it. However, it struck me that she was showing remarkably little interest in it, considering the importance she was according the decision, so I was not altogether surprised when, back in the carriage again, she confessed that Alex had failed to meet her as arranged yesterday, and that the hat shop was merely an excuse, for we could easily return home via the city hall, and just possibly catch sight of Alex going either in or out of the coffee-house nearby.
I only blinked at that, and she hastened to assure me that Alex often went there in the mornings when he was free.
“Lajos is usually there then, and they can talk in peace when the café is quiet,” she said, peering out of the carriage window. “Drat this rain! I can’t see a thing...”
But as we turned into the boulevard, the rain was no longer blown against the left-hand window, and we were thus able to see quite clearly the large knot of people gathered outside the Pilvax, and the men who were running to join them from all directions.
“Oh, Katie,” Katalin breathed. I said nothing. The relief I had felt on the previous evening when no disturbances had occurred in the city, and even Mattias had given up hope of them, now vanished with a jolt. “Something’s happening...”
Something was. In the time it took us to drive the length of the street to the café, the knot had swelled to a crowd, and it was still growing. I could see Petöfi and Jókai climbing on to chairs to be seen, both holding pieces of paper before them like weapons.
Impulsively, I knocked on the carriage roof with my umbrella, and László obligingly pulled his horses in directly opposite the Pilvax.
“What are they doing?” Katalin asked fearfully.
“I don’t know.” I pulled down the window, and the hum of noise outside seemed to explode into an excited, passionate shout. My hand to my throat, I searched the crowd for Lajos — but I could see neither him nor Alex.
My stomach was tight with dread, and with something else that might have been anticipation. There had been street-meetings in the city before — noisy but harmless: I had no reason to suspect that this one was any different, yet I knew it was. This one was serious. This time they were starting something I was terribly afraid would go out of control.
“Look, there’s Lajos,” Katalin said, staring to the left. “Trust him to be in the thick of such a thing!”
My eyes flew after hers, and saw that she was right. He was running towards the crowd, at the head of a group of workmen, and the huge banner he waved above his head was not the colours of the liberal Opposition, but the bright red of revolution.
He was shouting something, but I couldn’t make out the words. Petöfi and Jókai were applauding their arrival, and as they joined the ever-increasing crowd, Lajos gave his flag one last flourish, and the people cheered loudly in response. Joining in the shout, Lajos passed the banner back to the man behind him, and pushed through to the front, calling something to Petöfi and Jókai.
The noise of the agitated crowd was deafening; no one seemed to notice the drizzling rain or pay the least attention to our stationary carriage. Vaguely, I wondered if László felt vulnerable up there on the driver’s box, or if he was secretly cheering with the crowd. He too had been born in Szelényi, I reminded myself; he would have known Lajos all his life.
“Katie, let’s go,” Katalin said quickly.
“Wait a moment...”
Petöfi had held up his hand for silence, and amazingly all the noise died away. “I have written a Song!” he cried. “A Song for Hungary, for all Hungarians!”
The demand to hear it was overwhelming. Into the renewed silence, Petöfi spoke again, his voice vibrant now with emotion, feelings which could not but be infectious. They were passed on in his words, rousing, simple, unquestionably moving.
“Arise, Hungarians! Your country calls...”
“Oh no,” said Katalin. “Oh no, they can’t do this, not here...”
“Hush,” I said, with barely understood impatience. “Listen.”
“Are we to live as slaves, or be free?” Petöfi was demanding. “This is the question. Choose!” He paused for effect, then answered himself intensely, passionately, “We swear by the God of Hungarians, we swear we shall be slaves no more!”
That answer was his refrain. By the end of the poem, the people were shouting it with him; and the crowd was still growing, almost stretching across to our carriage now. The final cheer was strangely terrifying in its enthusiasm. There was no doubt that these people at least were behind Petöfi, that they were no longer prepared to be slaves of poverty or feudalism or any other injustice.
I felt my breath catch in my throat. I was afraid; but I was moved too, and I had to stay just a little longer.
Into the noise, Petöfi was shouting, “We have written Twelve Demands to end slavery in this land! Jókai will read them to you!”
I knew the contents of this. While Jókai read them out and the crowd cheered each point wildly, my eyes were fixed on Lajos. Half-hidden from me by the crowd, I could still sense the tense stillness of his body. But his eyes were busy, searching the crowd, gauging their reactions. I saw him nod at something Vasvári said to him. I saw his eyes meet Petöfi’s, and I saw the communication pass between them, a flash of understanding and triumph.
I was shut out. Suddenly I knew that I could not even have his full friendship, for the affinity between us stopped short of what he shared with Petöfi. Helpless, pointless jealousy surged through me, leaving me weak and unable to give László the order I knew I should.
Only Jókai’s final call for “Equality, Liberty, Fraternity!” and the deafening roar of the crowd’s approval, jerked me back to reality.
“These are what we demand of the King!” Jókai shouted.
“So what are we waiting for?” someone cried. My heart lurched, for it was Lajos. “Let’s go and print them!”
That drew another cheer, but into it someone shouted uneasily, “What about the censor?”
“To hell with him!” Lajos said promptly. “Don’t the people want a free press?”
Clearly, the people did.
“To the printing shop!” Petöfi cried into the uproar. “But first, let us march to the university and get the students to join us!” He leapt off his chair, pushing his way to the front of the cheering crowd, linking arms with Lajos and Vasvári as he went.
I found my voice at last. “László,” I said through the open window. “Drive on, please.” I was shaking, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the crowd as we pulled away from it. Somehow it had changed from a seething, shapeless mass into a marching column with the young radicals at its head and the bright red flag, soaked by the rain, still waving bravely in their midst.
“Thank God Alex is not with them,” Katalin whispered.
I didn’t point out that Alex was more likely to be with the soldiers who would inevitably confront this mob. Lajos and his friends had deliberately roused the people, like a sleeping tiger, and I didn’t see how they could possibly control the consequences. Blood would be spilled, as it had already been spilled in Vienna and Paris and Italy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
My hands had stopped shaking by the time I retrieved the children from a wide-eyed Zsuzsa — news of the demonstration outside the Pilvax had reached the palace already — but it was very difficult to concentrate on the task of teaching when my mind was full of anxiety and a desperation to know
what was happening. Neither István nor Mattias came home all morning. There was no sign of Elisabeth, but Katalin, as restless as I, soon came to the schoolroom and stood beside me at the window, watching the rain roll down the glass in great, fat drops. The weather was getting worse: I could only hope it would damp revolutionary ardour.
“Do you think Alex will be at the Museum this afternoon?” Katalin murmured.
I stared at her. “Did he arrange to be?” If I had known that, I would not have gone with her this morning and I would have been spared this agony of worry. On the other hand, I could not be sorry that I had seen it. Wildly, I hoped it would not prove to be the last time I saw Lajos.
“Yes,” Katalin was saying, “but how can I know...” She broke off as a door slammed somewhere in the house.
The sound of Mattias’s voice, excited and laughing, came nearer. Katalin and I exchanged glances. As one, we moved to the door to intercept him, but we had barely taken two steps before the schoolroom door burst open and Mattias himself came striding in. He was soaked through and dishevelled, his face flushed as if with exertion, his eyes positively shining with enthusiasm.
“This is wonderful!” he cried, hardly even noticing the children, but coming straight to us. “I came to tell István, but Ferenc says he’s in Buda...”
“Tell him what?” I interrupted. “What’s happened?”
“The revolution has begun, and we’ve abolished censorship!” he cried, seizing Katalin’s hands and dancing her round in circles, to the great and vocal joy of the children.
“You can’t have!” Katalin gasped, pulling her hands free. “What are you talking about, Mattias? I can’t bear this...”
“It’s begun,” he said triumphantly. This was getting us nowhere. Desperately, I caught him by the shoulders. I could feel my stomach churning with dread all over again.
“Mattias, what has begun?” I demanded urgently. “What exactly has happened?”
He perched himself on my desk, grinning at us in sheer high spirits. Still, he could hardly contain himself.
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