Gazdagh Sándor

I had a date, a marvellous little girl, somewhere along the Boulevard. As we were walking, late in the afternoon on the 23rd of October, I saw a little poster on the houses opposite the Kilián Barracks – it had come from the University of Technology, if I remember correctly – which had a cockade on it. I read it carefully, and I was immediately reminded of the start of the 1848 March revolution*, and I was so agitated that

Then we said our good-byes and I went to my godmother's, who woke me early in the morning with the news: "There's a revolution in Pest!"

From Pesterzsébet I wanted to go to Pest to see an acquaintance about escaping to Austria. I was walking along the Ludovika building (an old military school); then I turned off Üllői Road into a street that runs alongside the botanical gardens. Suddenly, four or five people were running toward me. A Russian patrol. They pointed the submachine guns at me and grabbed the documents in my pocket. My National Guard Certificate fell to the ground, showing the red, white and green stripe across it. "My God!", I knew my fate was sealed. They searched me and found my handgun. I was crying, in a very cowardly manner, because I adored life. And what hurt me most was that my body would never be found. Even if it were found, they would not know whose it was, as they had taken all my papers. I was standing in a lit area, the light came from some street lamp. And nothing happened! I tried to turn back to see what was going on behind my back, and suddenly I had the sensation of a slap so strong that my head almost fell off. I fell to the ground. I regained my senses quickly and tried to pick myself up. The man saw that I was about to get up, so he came around to my head. I looked up and saw that the bastard was about to shoot. I raised my arm to protect myself. At that moment there was a tremendous explosion. When I came to my senses, I was convinced I was dead.

I was trying to reach the edge of the lit area, so I crawled while trying to maintain my original position as a dead man, to make it appear that only a dead body was "moving" a little to the side. When I reached the shadow, I tried to stand, and I did. I ran across the street and tried to enter the hospital, pulled on the door-handle; it was locked. I started banging on the door in desperation, and a doctor came along in a white coat. I could see the horrible state my head was in by the astonished look on his face.

* : The revolution against Austrian tyranny spearheaded by young people that broke out in Pest on the 15th of March 1848. The revolution later evolved into a war of liberation.