by Antal Szerb
“Your Highness, this necklace was created for you by that jeweller in Venice. It is a gift—something we planned in the Palazzo Pietrasanta of blessed memory. It all went very smoothly, and Mr Coltor has already settled the bill for it. But I must also mention that he gave us a hundred thousand dollars on behalf of the Concern, which we asked for at the time as an advance. He has now made it my reward for services in connection with the treaty.”
“Well, well, well. So now we don’t have to nip off to Mexico.”
“I think this is the most appropriate moment to hand the necklace over to you, as Princess Ortrud will be arriving in Lara within the week.”
The King took the necklace and studied it thoughtfully.
“Very beautiful,” he said. “Very beautiful, wonderfully executed. But … ” (he drew it closer to him, deep in thought) “ … properly speaking, it belongs to Marcelle. That ring of hers that we commandeered to hire the Palazzo Pietrasanta, and so laid the foundations of Alturia’s prosperity, will not glitter in the pages of history. All the rich people have had a reward. She’s the only one who hasn’t. How could we possibly forget her? Please, send this little gift to Mlle Marcelle Desbois. I’m sure you’ll know where to find her.”
“An excellent suggestion, I am sure. But there isn’t very far to go. Marcelle is here in the palace.”
“What? Here, in the palace?” the King shouted. “And you tell me only now?”
“I thought Your Highness might wish to take your leave of her, and that it might be instructive for you to take one last look … at life, as it is lived down there. If you would be so gracious as to allow me, I shall call her straight away.”
A moment later he was back, leading Marcelle by the hand.
“Mademoiselle Marcelle Desbois!” he announced ceremonially.
Marcelle was dressed simply, but very elegantly, for a journey. Her face wore hardly any make-up. She looked at the King with a serious, formal expression, and curtsied.
The King’s face lit up, and was again the face of simple Oscar. It was as if the marshal’s greatcoat was quite forgotten.
“Marcelle!” he shouted, and moved quickly towards her.
But when he saw that she hadn’t moved, and continued to present him with that solemnly austere face, he was shocked. He stopped and looked around for St Germain. But St Germain had discreetly vanished through the same side door through which he had brought the girl.
“Marcelle … ” he began, rather hesitantly. “But it’s truly wonderful that you are here.”
She smiled a small, restrained smile, but said nothing.
“So tell me … how do you like my country?”
“Very pretty,” she replied.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s very pretty. Or shouldn’t I have said that?”
The King swallowed briefly.
“Oh, but it is. Wonderfully so.”
This was not what he had expected. He had hoped for something of the old Marcelle, some down-to-earth language of the sort he was so familiar with.
“And yet … ” he began … “don’t you find, this palace … a bit shabby … a twaddlesome sort of place … in comparison to the Louvre, perhaps. Tell me it’s all twaddle,” he almost pleaded.
“I find it aesthetically very pleasing, and at the same time very cosy, Your Highness.”
He took a step closer to her.
“Tell me, Marcelle … or don’t you remember me … your Oscar?” His voice was little more than a whisper. “You don’t remember Oscar, and how no one could have been more useless than he was, how you had to scold him all the time?”
“Of course I remember, Your Highness,” she said, coldly, almost resentfully.
Her aloofness reduced him to even greater despair.
“Then why won’t you talk to me as Oscar? I shall always be Oscar to you. Or are you still angry with the old Oscar, and regret the whole thing? Speak to me, the way you used to.”
“Of course I’m not angry,” she replied, in a strained, hesitant voice. “Of course I’m not angry with you. Oscar will always be my dear old pal.”
She raised her arms towards him, but the gesture was somehow arrested half-way, and she shrunk back into herself.
“No, please don’t ask me for the impossible. Your Highness is King Oliver VII of Alturia, not Oscar. Oh, Oscar was someone else entirely.”
“Why? What was Oscar like?”
“Oscar was the kind of boy who could con twenty-four locomotives out of an American railroad king … ”
“I can tell you now, that story wasn’t true.”
“I know, Your Highness. But Oscar was the sort of boy who said that kind of thing, just to win my heart. He was a dear, dear boy.”
“Please sit, Marcelle,” he said, defeated. Memories flooded back, overwhelming him. His one venture into the real world … “Tell me something about Oscar.”
“I remember,” she said thoughtfully, her eyes fixed somewhere above his head, “we went together once on a boat trip to Torcello. We didn’t have much money so we packed some bread and ham into a bag—good fresh Italian ham and Bel Paese cheese—and we were just like the concierges in Paris going off on a Sunday to shoot at St Cloud. And on the boat they thought we were on our honeymoon. We went to the front of the boat and a wave hit us and we were completely drenched, and Oscar was afraid I’d catch a cold because the wind was up. At Torcello we settled ourselves down on the grass and unpacked our lunch, and in the bar they brought us glass after glass of wine. After dinner Oscar read La Stampa and fell asleep, and I tied a garland of daisies to his hat. And we were just like people on honeymoon, and those Paris concierges. That evening Oscar played his mouth organ in the lovely moonlight, and we sang. That’s when Your Highness was Oscar … truly Oscar … But now … ”
The King rose and paced up and down the room, deep in thought. He remembered that trip to Torcello very well. Then … he had indeed been truly Oscar then … he had been just like anyone else: like a human being …
Suddenly he came to a halt and looked at her.
“You are quite right,” he said sternly, as if to himself. “That Oscar is no more. He’s dead. He no longer exists. So, Oliver VII, King of Alturia, what have you to say to Mlle Marcelle Dubois, from Paris, who asks, and expects, nothing from you?
“Look, Marcelle,” he continued, after a further pause. “You must at least allow me to carry out poor Oscar’s last wishes.”
He took the necklace from the table and held it out to her.
“Oscar sends you this gift. You remember, the poor fellow always promised that if any of his ventures ever succeeded, you would be the first person he thought of. This is poor Oscar’s one gift to you.”
She took the box in her hand, opened it, took the necklace out and began to fiddle with it nervously.
“Thank you very much,” she said softly. “I really do thank you. It’s wonderful. Miraculous. I always said that Oscar was a really good boy.”
Then, with eyes full of sorrow, she added. “And I would have said the same if he hadn’t sent this present to me.”
She smiled, very slightly. The King came a step closer. For a moment he felt that, despite everything, something of the old passion between Oscar and Marcelle was still alive. But, with the most delicate of gestures, she stopped him in his tracks.
“Look, Your Highness, I know I have to be sensible about this. You were never really right as Oscar, and I’d probably be the same if I mixed with royalty.”
For a long while the King stood there, silent and very sad. Then:
“So, Marcelle, and what will you do next, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
She lowered her gaze.
“A good friend of mine has bought himself a car and invited me to go with him to Brittany.”
“That’s excellent. They say Brittany is at its best at this time of year. I envy you, Marcelle. Tell me, would it be very impertinent if I asked who that person is?”
�
��No, of course not. Your Highness knows him well: Sandoval, the painter.”
For a moment he was gripped by fierce jealousy. Oh, the lucky rascal! He always chooses the pick of everything for himself! When it comes to a profession, he paints; in politics, he’s a conspirator; and now he’s going off to Brittany with Marcelle, on the money I gave him as a reward for his services! But then he remembered the whole moral lesson he had brought back from his brief excursion into real life, and said, with resignation:
“Then go, Marcelle. I would have gone too, but from now on my place is forever in Lara. Have a good time, Marcelle. Goodbye.”
Once again she made a deep curtsey, then went out through the door by which she had entered. A moment later St Germain was back in the room.
“St Germain,” the King mused, “yet again you have taught me something. If I hadn’t seen her now, perhaps for the rest of my life I would have mourned for the trip to Torcello and Oscar’s idyll … But why are you putting on that face?” he asked in sudden alarm.
“Your Highness, it’s a day of goodbyes and farewells. I wish to ask Your Highness’ permission to take leave of you myself.”
“You? Why? Where do you want to go?”
“To Buenos Aires, Your Highness. I’ve had a telegram from my friends there; they’re expecting me. I am needed to sort out a really big business deal.”
“Count, you’re joking!” the King shouted angrily. “Your place is to be forever at my side. As long as I am King here, you will always have good work to do.”
“I know, Your Highness,” St Germain replied, with a deep bow. “I know, and I am profoundly grateful. But that is precisely why I am asking you to allow me to take my leave.”
“I don’t understand,” the King said, exasperated. “Do you think you could find, anywhere else, a better situation than the one you have here?”
“I don’t think that, Your Highness. In fact I am quite certain that some very difficult times lie ahead of me—living on the top floor of some little hotel and dining on the boring menus of restaurants in the student quarter. A hundred thousand dollars is a large sum of money, but it will drift away as mysteriously as it came. And then I’ll start all over again, until I am grown too old and end my worldly career in total poverty.”
“So, then … ? Why would you rather not stay on as my chief financial adviser?”
“A settled bourgeois existence would never suit me, Your Highness. I’m a man for serious work. I just cannot see myself administering, writing memoranda, counting money and transacting legitimate business for the rest of my life. My financial talent is for making money from nothing and then looking for another nothing to make more money from. That’s my métier.”
“And aren’t you afraid of getting tired of doing this? That the permanent insecurity might grind you down?”
“Get tired? Oh, who knows, Your Highness, perhaps I already am? But I always bear my illustrious ancestor in mind. No country’s borders could contain him. New courts kept coming, and new gullible princes, new secrets and new adventures; the whole world glittered at his feet like so much treasure trove that had to be pocketed up quickly before the rightful owners came back … until he found his rest in the crypt in that little North German town … ”
“But that was then, in the gorgeous pink and sky-blue eighteenth century, with its frilly lace and beauty spots. It’s a bit harder to pocket things up in this modern world of reinforced concrete, St Germain!”
“Your Highness, my illustrious ancestor claimed to have lived for over a thousand years, and to have known Pontius Pilate personally. And sometimes I think of myself that I too have always been here, and will live forever … Long after reinforced concrete has disappeared, the need for adventure will still be with us … But this theme has taken us rather a long way. Your Highness, give me leave to go.”
“I don’t know what to say. If you must go whatever the cost, I cannot restrain you by force. I can only say I shall miss you very, very much.”
St Germain smiled, and bowed.
“If ever your situation changes, Your Highness, and Oscar has to be resurrected and he needs my help, St Germain will give it, even from his grave.”
He bowed again, and vanished, as if he had been dropped into a magician’s hat.
A few days later Princess Ortrud and her dazzling entourage arrived from Norlandia. The capital gave her an enthusiastic welcome. The whole day was given over to the celebrations. She held a reception for the female members of Alturian aristocracy, attended a banquet in the City Hall, inspected the arrangements and fittings in the so-called Queen’s Wing of the palace, and only towards evening, before dressing for the celebratory night at the opera, did she find a few moments to be alone with her fiancé King Oliver.
“At last,” he cried, as Baron Birker went out. He went quickly over to Ortrud, embraced her, and gave her a gentle, intimate kiss.
“It’s so good to be here,” she said. “How I love this country. When I go down the street now, people shout their heads off the moment I appear. And they no longer bash Baron Birker on the nose; they write ‘Long live Birker, true friend of the country’ on the wall of his house! Isn’t that interesting?”
“It’s all down to your fiancé’s political wisdom,” the King replied. “It turned the situation around completely.”
“I always said you were a wonderful king,” said Ortrud, nuzzling closer up to him.
“Tell me, Ortrud, did you miss me?”
“Very much, my dear.”
They kissed again and sat down.
“And then you know,” she went on, “I must confess in all honesty, when you vanished like that I was afraid I would never be your wife, and I would never know the great change they told me about that is so important in a woman’s life. My mother always said how difficult it was to find a husband for a royal princess. Monarchs are getting rarer by the day.”
“What? Did you think I might go off with someone else? That’s not very nice of you.”
“Oh no! I didn’t think that; only my mother. Once you disappeared, you were impossible to trace. I don’t understand how you managed to make yourself so invisible. You really must tell me where you went, when you were on the loose. What were you doing in your shirtsleeves in Kansas City?”
“I never went there. And I wasn’t ‘on the loose’. I was gathering experience. I mixed with all sorts of people, I got involved in stormy events, I got to know life.”
“And what did it teach you?”
“Oh, so many things. Above all, that it isn’t very interesting.”
“What?”
“Well, that life … ”
“I don’t understand you.”
“You don’t need to. It’s enough that you realise that I have learnt how good it is that there are little princesses in the world like you … in a world where there are still kings.”
“Tell me, Oliver, but truly … did you miss me?”
“Of course. Very much. The fact is, I did talk to another woman … ”
“What sort of woman?” Ortrud cried out in terror. “Oliver … you betrayed me all the time, I know!”
“Of course I didn’t. It wasn’t like that at all.”
“Don’t tell me, I know what men are like. Tell me, what sort of woman was she? I’m sure she was dreadful. Who did you like best?”
“Well, you see, Ortrud, in Venice there was a girl, a dear, really interesting girl. Completely different from you … ”
“I can imagine what sort of girl she was. A common baroness, or a minister’s wife, yes?”
“Er … er … yes, more or less. Very common, actually. That was why I liked her.”
“And so?”
“So nothing.”
Ortrud became very angry.
“Since you brought this up, you’d better give me the full story. What was this woman? Did you kiss her?”
“How could you think that? We just talked. But I didn’t want to tell you. I only mentioned her be
cause, you know, she was completely different to you, but then she also looked a great deal like you. And I turned to her, I am sure, because properly speaking, the two of us … ”
But he stopped, suddenly concerned. Princess Ortrud was really not the sort of woman you can tell everything to.
“And what about the two of us?” she asked anxiously.
Oliver dropped the earnest tone of voice he had been using and answered instead as if he were still addressing his people from the palace balcony:
“I realised I could no longer fritter my time away. I had to return to the throne as quickly as I could to marry you. Truly.”
Ortrud gazed at him with suitable awe.
“You know, Oliver, it’s wonderful how you foresee everything, and can plan for everything.”
“To be sure.”
“And that the real reason you went away was so you could return and people would really be pleased to see you.”
“Yes, my girl. History teaches us that kings have to travel abroad from time to time, like husbands. Otherwise you get bored with them.”
“Wonderful! And I thought it was the end of the world when you sent me back to Mama. Only, I don’t understand, how when … do you remember … that evening … how did you know that a few seconds later the revolution would begin?”
“I could sense it. That’s how it is. The soul of a statesman is like a Geiger counter.”
“And what a bad time it was for a revolution. Do you remember?”
“Couldn’t have been worse. You never went through that change that is so important in the life of a woman.”
“And I never have since.”
“But I was more than willing to help you make that change, believe me.”
“Truly? … But then the sea serpent came.”
“Yes, the sea serpent. The fate of Alturian kings. But then it went away again. And now it’s done what it had to, and it’ll never trouble us again.”
“Are you sure about that, Oliver? Completely sure, that there won’t be a revolution this time?”
“Quite sure. You must trust in my statesmanlike wisdom and foresight.”