Fáklyaláng, 1961. február-október (2. évfolyam, 2-10. szám)
1961-10-23 / 8-10. szám
Hungarian Torchlight 7 TIBOR TOLLAS: THEY'VE WALLED UP EVERY WINDOW . . . Of life without, only this gleam was left, A tiny patch of stars, a glimpse of sun. In daily gloom, within dim walls bereft, We watched the vent for this as day was done. This too they stole, this streak of sunlight thin, They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. In memory’s eye, I mark the azure sea At Naples, and beside the shining shore Vesuvius waits and smokes. Can you, like me, See happy, sun-browned swimmers by the score? We live in night like men who blind have been: They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. Our ten months gasping for the missing air, - Ten of us lie, in one close kennel pent, As fish-gills on the bank might gasp despair, To eat the food, which stinks of excrement, Our stomachs lack the power to begin: They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. From the bright fragrance of the Alpine peaks The west wind blows freshness r ’- bouquets; Of virtue to the soul that distar ce speaks, And smiling summits swell the hymn of praise. But phthisis grips my cell-mate, dark as sin, They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. For us no more the steamer’s whistle blows; All maiden laughter from our sense is wiped; No pleasure in our ears sonorous flows; No summer plays an organ, myriad-piped. Our cells are deaf, all sound is dead herein: They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. By Barcelona, in a golden fair, The warm voice of a tawny woman croons; The streets are pied with dances here and there; A gay guitar gives dusk its tinkling tunes. Our leaden days flow silent in chagrin: They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. We probe in darkness towards the velvet skies As if within a coffin we were nailed, We only touch our rags and agonize, Or feel our hands by vermin-hosts assailed. We once caressed the sunlight, like soft skin, They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. There is a ball in London; like a rose A girl glides, in her silks, on floors that gleam; In all the bloom of lustrous hair she glows, Soft-mirrdfed in the wainscot, like a dream. The West is dancing. Has it Magyar kin? They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. Our tijgues recall the pleasant fast of spring Then swallow with a groan our morsel dank Whose fecal horror chokes its entering And turns our bellies sick, our reason blank; -Yet even this our famine forces in. They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. Sleep locks our hungered bodies in its spell And there I sate a gourmet’s appetites On all that Paris offers—see as well Climbing above the city’s neon—lights, The Silent Ghost—but here no dawns begin: They’ve walled up every window tight with tin. The radios shout hoarsely of new deals, Of freedom and of justice due to man. But here my dungeoned body only feels The million lashes of foul Stalin’s plan. From Vác to far Peking his slaves make din: “Beware! Beware! Or through the entire world They’ll wall up every window tight with tin!” Translated by WATSON KIRCONNELL it into their own hands to carry out one of the students’ demands, namely that for the removal of the great statue of Stalin. Their efforts caused it to overturn at 9:30 p.m., by which time resentment was being freely expressed over Mr. Gerö’s speech. On the evening of 23 October, some of the students had sought to have their demands broadcast by Budapest Radio, in order to bring them to the attention of the people as a whole. The censor had been unwilling to broadcast the demands for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and for free elections, and the students had refused to allow incomplete publication. The following day, some of the students went from the Bern statue to the Radio Building, with the intention of making another attempt to have their demands broadcast. A large crowd gathered at the Radio Building, which was guarded by the AVH or State security police. The students sent a delegation into the Building to negotiate with the Director. The crowd waited in vain for the return of this delegation, and eventually a rumor spread that one delegate had been shot. Shortly after 9 p.m., tear gas bombs were thrown from the upper windows and, one or two minutes later, AVH men opened fire on the crowd, killing a number of people and wounding others. In so far as any one moment can be selected as the turning point which changed a peaceable demonstration into a violent uprising, it would be this moment when the AVH, already (Continued on next page)
