That is how it was at that hour, too, in the balmy evening air; we showed our combativeness only in that we were marching together, so many of us; of course our marching was directed against something or some people, but it wasn't yet clear what or who these were, everyone could still think what he wished, bring along his own private grudges, ask his own personal questions without having to come up with definite answers, and if anyone did come up with one, he couldn't know how the others would respond, which is why he spoke in slogans, yelled, or remained silent.
There wasn't a single thing seen or heard that evening that was not in some way significant: every taunt, every slogan, every line of poetry, and even silence itself turned into a mass-scale testing of, and search for, my personal feelings, points of contact, similarity to and possible identification with others.
An object — a T-square, a poem, the national flag — gives us a surface for our thoughts; on such surfaces we conceive of things that otherwise could not be put into words, and in this sense objects are but the tangible symbols, the birthplaces of inarticulate instincts and dark, unformed emotions; they are never the thing or event itself, only the pretext for it.
I couldn't stand the glare of the floodlights any longer.
If I could have talked to him, or at least to myself, about this, I should have said that after we managed to press through the human bottleneck on Marx Square and ran to catch up with the others, something in me changed irreversibly; I simply forgot that moments earlier I'd wanted to go home, and it was the city that made me forget it, turning stones into houses, houses into streets, and streets into well-defined new directions.
And from that point on things followed the course dictated by the law of nature: a spring wells up from the ground, branches into streams, flows into rivers rushing toward the sea; it was this poetic and this simple! obeying the attraction of the larger mass, human bodies propelled themselves out of the noisy, gaily seething side streets toward the boulevard and pressed themselves into the larger crowd there; Verochka must have ended her improvised recitation with the resounding line "Those who never knew, there's no more excuse / Learn now what it's like when the poor cut loose," because with the force of a cork popping free, to the rumble of running feet, people were rushing at us from behind, thrusting us forward, all of us sweeping along in the direction of Margit Bridge; yet even this did not mean that these countless individual wills — all at different temperatures, igniting one another with sheer friction but in the absence of real fuel causing only sparks that flared and quickly died— could heat up to a single common will, yet a change did occur, and everyone must have sensed it, because the shouting ceased, there was no more laughing, recitations, speeches, or flag waving, as if crowding into this one and only possible direction, everyone had retreated into the smallest common denominator of the moment: the sound of their own footsteps.
The massive fullness of this sound, the relentlessly even, rhythmic echoing that now filled the deep canyon of Szent István Boulevard, was strong enough not to lessen but to increase the feeling of fellowship, a feeling further intensified by the sight of people clustered in wide-open windows all around; separated from us, they were waving to us, were with us, and we, down on the street, were also with them up there; the crowd began to feel its own weight and strength, and developed with each step a slower, heavier solemnity.
Broad Szent István Boulevard begins to climb near Pannonia Street— today's Lászlo Rajk Street — and at Pozsonyi Road gently slopes as it runs onto Margit Bridge; on ordinary days this slight rise and downward slope can hardly be detected, and if I hadn't been in that huge crowd that evening I wouldn't have noticed it either; one simply uses one's city, unaware of the peculiarities of its streets and squares.
At the foot of the bridge, at this little incline, two streams of people met, coming from opposite directions and with very different dispositions, which immediately made clear why our steps had to slow, our ranks become more solid, solemn, silent: we were going up the gentle incline while opposite us people were coming down from the bridge, a crowd that was stronger not only because of its potential energy but also because it seemed more organized, cheerful, homogeneous and youthful, the people looking as if they had already achieved a significant victory; they came arm in arm, singing, belting out rhymed slogans to the beat of their feet, and without breaking ranks swept around the foot of the bridge, cutting a wide path across the intersection, turned onto Bálint Balassa Street, marching in orderly rows; our groups, ascending, tighter but more disorderly, cohering with so many mismatched personal impulses, had to merge into the opening and closing wings of this unending huge fan of people, we had to push our way into the available spaces, increasing our disarray as we went for any crack, any opening.
There are moments when the sense of brotherhood makes you forget all bodily discomfort and needs: you are not tired, love no one, are neither hungry nor thirsty, neither hot nor cold, don't have to relieve yourself; these were such moments.
While we were running, Szentes told us that these were university students coming from Bern Square; the ranks closed around us, we were in them and although we momentarily upset their orderly ranks and unity, we caught their upbeat mood; everyone began to talk, people coming from different places, in different moods, eagerly exchanged views, compared notes, addressed strangers as friends; we learned who had spoken at that other assembly, what demands had been made and how they'd been received; and we told them about the tanks, the soldiers, the workers from Váci Road and the army being with us now; this heated exchange of information and mixing of the two groups made for a certain diffusion, but the somewhat lax procession found cheerful new strength and vigor.
This is how we marched toward the Parliament.
Assuming that I must have a different view of what was going on but not wanting to expose me publicly, Szentes leaned close, making sure that Stark wouldn't hear — in our excitement our faces almost touched — and whispered, There you are, now you can see for yourself, this system has had it.
Of course I see it, I said, and jerked my head away, but I don't know how all this is going to end.
The dark dome of the Parliament was now straight ahead of us; the illuminated massive red star on top had been installed only a few months earlier.
I must have looked pretty funny with my drawing board, my bulging schoolbag, and my self-consciously solemn expression, trying to reconcile the extraordinary events of the evening with my peculiar family experiences, because my apprehension regarding the future so surprised Szentes that he had to laugh; in that very instant, as I tried to figure out what his laugh meant, somebody threw his arms around me from behind and a hand, firm and soft and warm, covered my eyes.
He's at it again, drawing conclusions, he's at it again! it was Kálmán, shouting and jumping for joy, waving his arms, in the middle of a bunch of uniformed baker's apprentices with three flustered high-school students facing him; but we couldn't stand around, we all had to move on.
By the way, I lost my drawing board at the foot of Kossuth's statue; Kálmán climbed up and I climbed after him, we wanted to see the people filling up the square, as earth-shattering shouts went up: Turn off the star! turn off that star! and then, in the blink of an eye all the lights in the square went out, only the star shone on top of the dome, a rumble of discontent raced though the crowd, followed by whistles and boos, and then silence, and in this silence people raised newspapers over their heads and lit them into torches; like a whirlwind sweeping across a huge field, the flames flashed and leaped, flooding the square in light, dying quickly, but flaring up again and again, spreading, glaring in spots, a white conflagration turning into yellow waves, blinking, flickering into red, and falling in glittering crystals at people's feet; a few hours later I left my schoolbag at the corner of Pushkin and Sándor Brody Streets, where it stayed on the empty pavement where Kálmán, just as he was about to bite into a piece of bread spread with jelly, dropped to the ground to avoid a burst of rifle fire coming from the rooftops; I even thought how quick and clever he was to duck, I thought his face was smeared with jelly.