18
CHAPTER II.
FROM MIDNIGHT
TO MIDNIGHT.
A plague of cigarette-smoke, through which, for moments, cold Autumn air bored deep channels, when passage-doors and balcony-exists were opened at the same instant. An excitement which could no more be heightened. Underneath the window of the National Council quarters in the Hotel Astoria, from whose balconies speakers without intermission wrought pacifically upon the crowd and lowered its temperature. An extract of the population of Budapest was in flux: clerks, workmen, servants, officers, ladies—every class.
Twelve minutes past twelve.
The first "announcement." A troop of soldiers, who had tendered allegiance to the National Council, had marched to the Maria Theresa Barracks to overcome it. The first bloodshed was impending. Indescribable excitement: motors shot by hard on the skirts of the crowd, men in wild haste climbed the stairs, an unspeakable intensity filled all men and things. The National Council had been sitting in permanence for days now. All decisions were rapidly made. The fight at the barracks must be prevented. Ladislaus Fényes and Eugen Landler were sent from the Council, and their efforts succeeded in averting the conflict. The watch at the Maria Theresa barracks restrained itself—no shot was fired.
