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CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST OF
OCTOBER.
Budapest is steeped in a sea of joy.
Laughing faces rejoiced in that day, which had to come, and came. Like a marriage was the union of the land with its new leaders, and only one who was there could measure the sorrow of the past by the excess of gladness which this young day prepared and spread abroad.
In those hours all that made for separation among men—year-long influences—were stilled, and the last bands which united the to-day with a long past yesterday were loosed.
The Republic was there—undeniably—and was enduring, as was her right. . . .
Was it a feeling that, without concrete news being sent to the front (this being hindered by counter-measures of the High-Command, in Baden) a knowledge of the change in the life of the State was yet penetrating to distant lands?
Hope here outran facts. . . .
The street remained the truest symbol of what had happened. The soldiers had been relieved of an iron and cramping coercion of discipline, and showed their joy at it.
At the East and West Railway Stations were endless throngs. A double process had developed itself: the people kept away from their homes grasped with both hands at every chance, of returning, and every few minutes long trains rolled out of the stations, crowded inside, and
