A World to Win

by Mary Lancaster

  “I don’t know where to start. I was at the university, listening — or at least yawning through the most tedious lecture you can imagine on the — well, it doesn’t matter what it was on, for we were suddenly interrupted by a great crowd of people outside, who’d marched up from the Pilvax! Petöfi had written a song — here it is...”

  He delved into his coat pocket and produced a crumpled piece of paper which he held out triumphantly. I took it without looking at it.

  “We know about Petöfi’s Song,” I said quickly. “Go on.”

  “Do you?” Mattias sounded interested. “Well, it’s a great poem, and it has inspired people as you’d never believe. Anyway, they had decided to print it, along with Young Hungary’s Twelve Demands, and came to the university to gather the students as support.”

  I glanced down at the piece of paper in my hand. It was printed. My breath caught. They had printed it without the censor’s approval, which meant that now they had broken the law, publicly and irrevocably. Lajos would be imprisoned at last, hanged...

  “Go on,” Katalin was saying impatiently. “I suppose you joined them?”

  “Of course! We all did, and just when I had given up hope too! The old Prof tried to stop us, crying out, ‘Gentlemen, in the name of the law...’, but we never heard any more than that, for the crowd swallowed up the rest of his words in a great roar and he took to his heels in fear for his life! Vidacs told us that we were forbidden to go on pain of expulsion from the university, but we went anyway. And you needn’t look so disapproving, Katalin, for your Zarescu was there too — not in uniform, fortunately, but I saw him as clearly as I see younow. Anyway, with all the students joining the demonstration, it was a huge crowd of us who marched off to Landerer’s printing shop — it was the nearest to us, as well as the biggest in town — and we elected a committee to go inside and get the thing printed. So Petöfi and Irinyi and Lázárand some others went inside, and while we waited Vasvári and Jókai made some rousing speeches.”

  “In this rain?” I couldn’t help saying sceptically.

  “Oh yes. We were all huddled together under umbrellas — we must have been a funny sight. Jókai warned us that in an hour it might be bullets instead of rain falling on us.” I couldn’t control the shiver than jerked through my body, but my eyes were fixed on Mattias’s youthful, wondering face. “Do you know,” he went on,“that as one man, everyone closed their umbrellas, and we just got wet.”

  I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. There was something oddly serious, even brave, in the symbolism of that act.

  “Go on, go on,” Katalin urged again.

  “Well, the next moment, Lajos appeared at the door of the shop, holding up a sheet of printed paper. ‘Here it is,’ he cried, ‘the first child of the free press!’ And a huge cheer went up, deafening me! But I was shouting so loudly myself that my voice cracked.”

  “But how did they do it?” I asked abruptly. “Did they print it themselves under Mr Landerer’s nose? Did they threaten him or his workers? Hurt them?”

  Mattias grinned. “Lord, no. According to Petöfi, they just politely asked Landerer to print the two manuscripts. Naturally, Landerer said it was impossible without the censor’s permission. He was so calm about it that even Petöfi was temporarily baffled, and then while they dithered, and the shop workers stood around gaping, Lajos realized that Landerer was hissing at them, ‘Seize one of the presses!’ So he nudged Irinyi who — being nearest — promptly laid his hands on the biggest machine and cried, ‘We seize this printing press in the name of the people!’ At which Landerer, good man, looked terribly sad and said, ‘I cannot resist force.’ Apparently the print workers then broke into cries of ‘Long live the people!’ After all they have more cause than most to hate the censorship laws!

  “And that,” he added, smiling happily from his sister to me, “was how we abolished censorship.”

  “For one day,” I said, but mechanically, for my head was spinning with fears and speculations. “So what happens now?”

  “There’s another meeting called for three o’clock this afternoon, outside the Museum.”

  “Oh no,” Katalin uttered, truly dismayed now. The fates were not kind to her and Alex these days. Surprised, her brother cast her an interrogative glance.

  “We were going to take the children to the Museum this afternoon,” I said quickly.

  “Take them somewhere else,” Mattias advised, dropping down from the desk and heading for the door. “They’ll have more fun that way!” And he swung out of the room, pausing only to ruffle the head of either child on his way past.

  I met Katalin’s gaze for a long moment.

  “It’s happening here too,” she said at last. Her voice was small and lost and frightened.

  Distractedly, I regarded the children as they squabbled over some toy they shouldn’t even have brought into the room. They were going to be impossible now.

  “Never mind,” Katalin said airily, recovering. “We’ll take them out this afternoon.”

  I stared at her. “We can’t, Katalin. Didn’t you hear Mattias? The revolutionaries have called a meeting before the museum!”

  “Perhaps no one will turn up. After all, it’s pouring with rain.”

  “It didn’t stop them this morning, and according to Mattias the crowd was huge by the time they reached the printers’ shop.”

  “Mattias always exaggerates.”

  “I don’t think so, not this time. And anyway, I doubt Alex will have time for you if he’s involved in these events.”

  “Of course he will!” Katalin said indignantly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said hastily. “We can’t risk taking the children into an angry mob.” I put it harshly quite deliberately, for in her single-mindedness, she was quite capable of endangering the children for the sake of one meeting with Alex.

  She was silent for a moment, looking indecisively at the children, who were now crawling under their desks. “We’ll take the carriage,” she said abruptly, “as we did this morning. We’ll just go and look. And at the first hint of trouble — or even a crowd like this morning — we’ll turn back.”

  I still could not like the idea, but in the end I gave in, partly to avoid confrontation which I did not feel able to cope with, and partly, I confess, to satisfy my own curiosity. I needed to know what was happening. So we duly set off in the carriage. Ferenc saw us go, and warned us of the afternoon’s planned demonstration. I promised we would be careful and gave László explicit instructions as to how vigilant he was to be.

  I kept telling myself that no one had been hurt in the morning’s adventure, but the soldiers had not been there then. This time they had plenty of warning, and the people would be flushed with the morning’s victory, prepared to be both rash and brave. But perhaps the threat of military intervention would be enough to call off the meeting.

  I didn’t really believe that, but it kept me sane on the brief drive to the museum. I was so lost in thought that it was left to Katalin to scold the children for fighting and shouting at each other. I barely heard them. And as we drew nearer to the museum, despite the driving rain, I saw the numbers of people in the streets increasing. The roads on to the square itself were filled with crowds pouring in the same direction.

  Mindful of his orders, László brought the carriage to a halt. I drew in my breath.

  “We have to go back, Katalin,” I said, and she nodded miserably, dumbly waiting for me to give László the order. Yet now it was I who hesitated. I couldn’t just go home, when yards away this was happening...

  In the end, I moved so suddenly that even the children were startled. I had the door open in a trice and was already half out of the carriage when I turned and said quickly over my shoulder, “You take them home — I’ll see what’s happening and take a fiacre back.”

  I had the briefest glimpse of Katalin’s bemused face before I closed the door on it. Then I gave László his instruction and hurried after the crowd in the d
irection of the square. I think Katalin called after me, but I didn’t stop.

  As I melted into the throng, I couldn’t help thinking of that other meeting I had walked into in Vienna a lifetime ago; I even imagined it was the same voice I could hear now speaking so passionately over the approving roar of what I realized must be a very large audience. Even so, I was certainly not prepared for the sight that met me as I moved into the square.

  I came in to the right of the museum itself, so I saw at once that the revolutionaries were using the building’s steps and landing as a stage. I saw too the shocking size of the crowd: there must have been ten thousand people there, sheltering under a colourful sea of umbrellas as the relentless rain battered down on them. I felt dwarfed, instinctively afraid of so huge a mass of bodies, far larger than any I had ever seen in my life before; and yet I could not even try to leave.

  Though the streaming water on my spectacles was blinding me, I still knew the man speaking to this multitude simply by his distinctive stance on the steps, at once poised and casual, as much at his ease as if he were addressing his friends at the Pilvax. I had been right to recognize the voice earlier. As I paused to wipe my glasses, standing firm against the jostling people around me, I was not really aware of his words, just of his familiar, persuasive voice, a little less lazy, a little more impassioned than I was used to.

  I crammed my dry glasses back onto my face. I could see Petöfi standing to one side of him; I saw Vasvári and Jókai and several other young radicals from the Pilvax all around the lower steps, listening to Lajos and watching the intent, excited crowd. Just as I had in Vienna, I moved nearer.

  The rain was already obscuring my vision again, but as I wiped impatiently at the glass, a large, kind man held his umbrella over me. I glanced up to smile my thanks, and received an unexpectedly huge beam of good will in reply, and despite the emotionally charged atmosphere all around me, I felt soothed. I stood still among the monstrous crowd, able to listen at last to Lajos’s confident words.

  He was urging everyone to stand fast in defence of what they had done that morning, and what they would do in the days to come, asking for the same unity I had only half-understood him to be advocating in Vienna, of all races and all classes, to make the people’s demands legally as well as morally right. He said there was nothing they could not achieve with this union; it was invincible. There would be no more serfs, no more nobles as we understood it, only one people.

  A ripple of approval, of longing, seemed to pass through the crowd as he spoke.

  “One people!” he repeated, raising his suddenly vibrant voice. “And then no power on this Earth could possibly hurt us — because the power will be ours!” His arms went out exultantly to encompass the whole square, the whole country. “My friends, the power is ours! Let us use it!”

  The applause was tumultuous. I felt a lump rise in my throat, for I dared to think he was right: so many people here, of all walks of life, and all united behind his dream of a free and just Hungary. And suddenly I wanted very badly to be up there beside him, because I believed in him...

  I swallowed, watching as his eyes searched the wildly cheering crowd. There was a smile playing on his lips, a new fire in his eyes born of today’s success; and yet there was an element of calculation too, as there always was in him — how far to push the crowd and still carry it with him, how much to say to frighten his opponents just enough without inciting actual violence. For I could see now that this was not the sort of revolution which was tearing Vienna — or not yet; it was still under control. If only the soldiers did not come...

  And I knew too, that even if I stood right next to him, tugging at his coat tails, he wouldn’t notice me, for now he was in his true element at last. This was what he had lived for and worked towards, for so long. And he was loving it.

  At last, he held up his hand, and obediently, the roars around me subsided. I found myself glorying in his mastery, even while I acknowledged its danger. He was walking a tightrope, and if he fell, the consequences could be disastrous.

  “This morning, we printed our Twelve Demands. We also printed a song of freedom, a National Song; I call on the author of that Song, the poet of our revolution — Sándor Petöfi!”

  And then, in the renewed cheers, Petöfi strode up to him, embraced him from sheer high-spirits, and I saw their lips move as they exchanged a few quick words. Released, Lajos jumped down a few steps and half-turned so that he could see both Petöfi and the crowd in the square who were chanting now for the National Song. Clearly delighted, Petöfi bowed to their wishes.

  They were silent now, and he quite serious, as he began to recite the poem that had so inspired this revolution — if such it proved to be. And it was Lajos who led everyone to roar along with the refrain, “We swear by the God of Hungarians, we swear we shall be slaves no more!”

  I felt the might of these words, the strength of the united voice ringing out across the city, and I wanted to weep. My eyes were held by Lajos, his arm raised high to the crowd, his voice lifted to heaven. He was like some shabby, untidy angel fighting for his people, risking his very life for them; and yet was there not something just a little demonic about someone so able and so willing to manipulate those same people, in whatever cause...?

  And he hadn’t noticed me in the multitude. I knew he wouldn’t. Not today. I had seen enough. I turned and began to push a little blindly through the crowd.

  “Katie! Katie!” A voice was shouting over the cheers, making me pause. It was Alex in civilian dress, reaching his way through to me. For the first time I was glad of the rain on my spectacles, hiding my eyes.

  “My God, Katie, isn’t this wonderful? Are you by yourself?”

  “Yes; Katalin went home with the children, but I wanted to find out... Alex, you will be careful?”

  “Of course! It’s all under control. Tell Katalin I’m sorry about this afternoon, and yesterday, and do you think you could manage to bring her to the Pilvax tonight? Tonight, I couldn’t be anywhere else, but I long to see her — will she come?”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I’ll pass on your message.”

  “Wait, have you no umbrella? Here, I’ll come with you...”

  “No,” I said quickly. “No, I’m fine. Good-bye!”

  And I almost bolted through the crowd away from him. I wanted desperately to be missed, as Alex missed Katalin.

  * * * *

  Dinner at the Szelényi palace that evening was, as you might imagine, somewhat fraught. Not surprisingly either, István arrived late and angry. I thought I might have to wait for the departure of the servants, who were themselves tense with suppressed excitement, to find out what he knew of the day’s events, but István had the aristocrat’s complete disregard of menials — they were, in fact, furniture to him. So, when Mattias excitedly demanded to know if he had heard about the demonstrations, he began speaking at once.

  “Heard about them?” he exploded. His brow was thunderous. “I’ve had the wretched rabble bellowing in my ears all afternoon!”

  Mattias grinned unsympathetically. “You were at the Vice-Regal Council then?”

  “I wish to God I hadn’t been! I suppose you were one of the dogs baying under the windows?”

  “Woof,” said Mattias provokingly. His brother glared at him.

  “What are you both talking about?” Elisabeth asked, her voice only slightly less bored than normal, though there was a frightened glint in her eyes. She took a dainty forkful of vegetables and waited to be informed.

  “I told you about this morning,” Mattias said.

  “Printing your silly leaflets? Yes, you told me.”

  “It’s not silly, and you know it. Well, we had another, even bigger demonstration this afternoon, outside the museum, and we decided to go from there to get the Pest City Council to endorse our Twelve Demands.”

  “And did they?”

  “With fifteen thousand people yelling in the street below them?” said István conte
mptuously. “Of course they did!”

  “So did you,” Mattias said, “so you needn’t sneer at them.”

  István threw down his knife. I was so interested in the conversation, I hadn’t yet picked mine up.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, I think the City Council were sympathetic anyway. Rottenbiller, the Deputy Mayor, even suggested we form a revolutionary Committee of Public Safety to maintain order — naturally with himself as chairman!”

  “But who else is on it?”

  “Oh, those you’d expect: Petöfi, Vasvári, Irinyi, Lázár, a couple of liberal nobles called Klauzál and Nyári, and some Council members, I think. Anyway, they decided we should present the Twelve Demands to the Vice-Regal Council. So we all marched across to Buda.”

  “Why the Devil couldn’t you have waited, collected signatures and passed it on to the King, as even Kossuth wanted?” István demanded.

  “It would have taken for ever. This way, it’s done. What happened in there anyway? Petöfi was fuming, raging that Klauzál was so humble before you that he sounded like a schoolboy before his master.”

  “He could afford to be humble with the threat of an angry mob behind him!” István retorted bitterly. “He was pleased to lay before us three requests: that censorship be abolished in law; that we release the political prisoner Táncsics; and that we order the army not to interfere.”

  I felt my whole body sag in relief at that. But Elisabeth, her fork poised half-way between her plate and her mouth, said, “Oh dear. Did you give in even to that?”

  “Damn it, we had to! Though I must admit I would have reserved my right to call on the army to restore order. But some of the Council were so petrified by the mob that they would have voted themselves into prison rather than risk offending it! And it didn’t help that Lajos Lázár chose to drape himself across the window, with an utter lack of respect — like some sort of thug — as if he was about to call on the crowd below to invade the chamber at any time! It made a nonsense of Klauzál’s humility, of so-called requests!”