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Vienna, November 3, 1918
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
Your telegram1 brought me the gratifying news that you are well, and the proof that Budapest is again calm and accessible.2 Isolation is an abhorrent source of the feeling of impotence, which is so strong at this time.
This evening the news of the armistice came,3 and with it the certainty that the foreign war is over for us. If Martin is not yet a prisoner, then let us hope he will now break through onto German territory. I owe Oli's presence in the house to the kindness of your countrymen, and I will remain grateful for that. He was on a transport to Sarajevo in Hungary when his company was surrounded, disarmed, and robbed of its vehicle convoy. Nothing was taken from the officers; they were all put on a train which brought them across the border to Germany-Austria. He arrived that way yesterday morning and has already reported to the new German-Austrian army. On the whole we are holding up, although some days, when events and anxieties connected to them accumulate, this is not an easy task. The city is quite peaceful, and everything that has taken place is hardly worth mentioning. But Sachs says rightly: all revolutions are bloodless and rational at the beginning. Incidentally, Sachs intends to leave tomorrow evening. I don't know whether he will succeed. Rank, who is here and right at the top, would like to go to Cracow tomorrow evening to bring along his belongings and then to begin his work here undisturbed. We also don't know from him whether he can carry out this trip.
Everything else is waiting for Freund's visit, but we know, of course, that we cannot count on it now. Among the plans that I am crafting here with Rank, the one that stands first and foremost is to make the publishing house with Heller's support, especially since we are prepared for the eventuality that the quarter of a million which Bárczy4 is supposed to direct to me perhaps won't be followed up.
Freund has to bring information about all of