Malafrena

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  “The emperor’s dead,” said young Vernoy.

  “Almighty Christ!” said Brelavay, “it’s Metternich that’s dead!”

  “Impossible,” said Sangiusto. “Metternich lives forever. Is the grand duchess perhaps really sick?”

  Oragon, sitting sideways on the long composing-table, his coat off and his stock loosened, shook his big, rough head. “No sicker than yesterday. She was at mass this morning in Roukh Chapel. Cancer she may have. But that won’t explain today’s move.” His voice with its slurring eastern accent dominated all others, and though he looked hot and baffled he was enjoying his power to dominate, to give answers, to force the respect of these selfwilled journalists who had lost confidence in him. He turned now as he always, instinctively, turned to the man in whom he sensed authority or symbolic value for the group, and spoke to him as deep unto deep. “What’s the mood in the streets now, Sorde?”

  “Do I know?” Oragon’s knowingness jarred on Itale. “The same as the mood in here, I suppose. We’re all in the same boat.”

  “It’s the unemployed mobs they’re afraid of,” said young Vernoy with his sententious and irresistible self-assurance. “They’ve closed the Assembly because it’s a potential rallying-center.”

  “Rallying about what?” said Brelavay. “Why the hugger-muggering in the Roukh? Why have all the Ostriches put their heads in the sand?”

  “Well, Vernoy must be right,” Karantay said, “but why so abruptly? They’ve created the disturbance they were trying to avoid. It’s not like Cornelius. His reasons must be pressing.”

  The discussion went round and round, moved on to the Illyrica, went on, got nowhere. Words and men came and went. It was nine o’clock. Itale’s head ached; he sat gazing at his glass of beer, the drift of foam at the rim. He picked it up and drank it off, and as he set it down saw Oragon making his way among the tables to him. The deputy bent down and said in a low voice, “Come out of here a moment, Sorde.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I want a word with you.”

  He took Itale’s arm and led him off across Tiypontiy Street, but he could not wait till they had got across the street into the park to speak. In the midst of passing traffic, in the dusty darkness broken by cab-lanterns, he said aloud, his face close to Itale’s, “There’s been a revolution in France. King Charles is dethroned. He went too far, violated the Charter—the city wouldn’t take it, they fought in the streets—The Duke of Bordeaux will be made constitutional king.”

  They stood still amongst the horses, the rolling wheels.

  “Is that it, then?”

  “That’s it. Charles tried to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. Overshot his authority. He abdicated on the thirtieth of July. The fighting must have been over for twelve days now. The new king will be sworn to fealty to the Constitution. It’s the end of absolute monarchy in France.”

  “The end,” Itale repeated. The flashing darkness and noise of the traffic, the smell of dust and horse-sweat and hot stone, it was familiar, he knew these words, this moment.

  “And the beginning—”

  “Where did you find out?”

  “Friend in Vienna, through a friend in Aisnar. You and I are among the dozen or so people in the whole country that know it.” Itale was struck by Oragon’s evident satisfaction as he said this, mixed with a kind of urgent confusion. Still gripping Itale’s arm, the deputy went on, “What do we do with it—what do we do with it? It’s a bombshell. Cornelius knows that. What do we do with it, Sorde?”

  “Throw it. Let everybody know. That’s what they’re afraid of, isn’t it? You announce it at the Illyrica. I’ll get some fellows to print up something for the provinces.” Itale laughed as he spoke. He felt that the moment was much too large for him, that the noise of hooves and wheels on cobblestones was the only convincing part of it; he and the rest of them were suddenly playing a role in history, and for this reason he felt artificial, like any private man up on a stage. At the same time it was, at last, easy to make decisions. The time had come. All one had to do at such a moment, when the walls fell down, was go ahead in the direction one had always tried to go.

  Oragon was flustered and two-minded only because he had never had any one direction to his actions, any fidelity. Enormously ambitious, energetic, emotional, he lacked the necessary passion. But he was very quick. He caught Itale’s meaning at once and wanted no more from him, having received his impetus. “All right, good. Here’s the note from Vienna, with the details. Go to the press as fast as you can before they close it on us. I’ll let the city know.”

  As Itale, Karantay, and Sangiusto left the Illyrica together they heard Oragon, up on one of the sidewalk tables, telling the news in his big slurring voice. “The French Revolution is accomplished. They’ve got the freedom they fought for forty years ago. The last Bastille is fallen! And their chance is ours. The same choice, the same chance! Is this France’s victory and glory, or Europe’s, ours? Will we sit quiet and let Metternich send more troops here to keep us quiet and suck us dry? I say recall the National Assembly, and Sovenskar to the throne of the free kingdom!” The traffic seemed to have halted, cab-lamps and cafe lanterns shining on many faces upturned to the orator: all things moveless, as things seen in a flash of lightning. The three men slipped away, hurried down dark streets towards the river.

  IV

  The short, warm, summer night went by full of the thump and rattle of the presses, shouting, laughter, orating. They printed up a news-sheet over the journal’s name headed, in 72-point type, REVOLUTION. The shop was snowed under with it, it was all over the streets, men and horses were found to carry it to the provinces. It announced what they knew about the Paris revolution, and stated that the National Assembly was remaining in session to consider the urgent questions of relations with the new government of France, tax control, and succession to the throne of the kingdom. “Lots of fuses to that bomb,” Brelavay said when he read it. He and Oragon had been about the city all night, going from one deputy’s house to another to inform them that the Assembly would meet as usual at nine tomorrow. Leaving the printer’s shop Itale went with him and Sangiusto to Cathedral Square, which had been the center of agitation during the night. In the cool of August dawn, under a high, cloud-brindled, colorless sky, the square looked immense and empty. The cathedral stood indifferent as a mountain, intent only on holding up its ponderous, delicate towers and ranks of stone saints and kings. They went on to the Eleynaprade. Down the mall, one behind the other, stood the cavalry of the palace guard, the men sallow and sleepy on tall horses. Behind them on the lawns under the trees swarmed an aimless crowd, thousands of people drifting, dispersing, regathering. The constant movement and the low but immense sound of the voices of the crowd was improbable, bewildering, in the austere and indrawn hour of dawn.

  Itale had meant to go on to Karantay’s flat for a few hours’ sleep, but stayed with the others in the crowd. Brelavay went to buy bread and cheese, since they were hungry. He went off and came back at a run, fearing something momentous would happen while he was gone ten minutes. The sky grew lighter, higher. Sunlight touched the crowns of the chestnuts. Nothing momentous had occurred but sunrise. It became a warm August morning. The crowd, grown enormous, now covered all the lawns beneath the grave, ignorant old trees. Itale and the other two had slowly pushed their way along the front of the crowd to the fence surrounding the gravelled area before the palace, and could see and hear the deputies of the left, gathered on the mall in front of the gates, arguing with officers of the guard. Itale was not paying much attention, as he was distracted by the increasing pressure and aimless turbulence of the crowd, and also was extremely sleepy.

  “There’s Livenne,” Brelavay said. “Leftwing Noble from the Sovena.”

  “They talked about him there. He hasn’t attended all month,” Itale said, and yawned till his eyes watered and he could not see the big, fair, young man who was saying, “Herr Colonel, you have no authority to keep the gates locked.
The Assembly Room belongs to the Assembly.”

  “Distinguished Sir, there has been no change in our orders,” the colonel of militia said for the tenth time.

  “You had best send to the Roukh Palace requesting a change in your orders, Herr Colonel,” Livenne said loudly, and the crowd pressed against the fence a few feet from him shouted in support.

  Sangiusto nudged Itale: “Look, they catch two crows.” Two clerical deputies who had come up the mall out of curiosity were trying to depart and found the crowd closed across their way and jeering. They hesitated and came back to join the forty or fifty liberal deputies waiting in front of the iron gates. More jeers and insults rang up and down the edges of the mall, now continuously walled with men; the guardsmen’s horses shifted feet, one tossed its head up and down until controlled. There was a sudden outbreak of shouts and cheers, hats and caps flew up into the sunlight, a gig came rolling up the gravel of the mall between the tall horses and the crowd-walls. “Who is the little old man?” Sangiusto asked as the cheering broke out all around them.

  “Prince Mogeskar. Matiyas Sovenskar’s cousin. Nobilissimus. Took some courage to come here.—Long live Mogeskar!” Itale shouted, swept up by the crowd’s enthusiasm. “Long live Mogeskar!” The prince got out of his gig, a pinched, brusque, neat, very old man, and said to Oragon and Livenne, “Good morning, gentlemen. Why are the palace gates shut in our faces?”—himself caught by the affronted, restless, lively temper of the crowd. But they waited. Ten o’clock struck on the deep bell of the cathedral. Eighty deputies stood on the sun-white gravel before the gates. Prince Mogeskar had invited an elderly priest to sit in his gig: “Hot work, this, for old men,” he said, and sat on, stiff and speckless in the blazing light. Stefan Oragon was always near the gig, even held the horse made nervous by the crowd. He was heliotropic, drawn to power as if his own power of winning men was less a gift than a deficiency: he could not stand alone. Yet he knew far better than Mogeskar, or Livenne, or the colonel of the militia, what power was; he knew himself to be the focus of the crowd, the soul of this immense, conglomerate, temporary entity. When he chose to act, they would act.

  Itale, bored, thirsty, and half-asleep, shifted from one foot to the other because both hurt. He was staring at the mansards of the palace against the hazy sky, counting windows, when abruptly he felt himself lifted off his feet, picked up, and cried out, “What is it?” in a surge of excitement. He pushed and was pushed, they were no longer standing still, no longer waiting; he heard a guardsman bawling an order in German about the relief of every second man, and the men around him shouting, “What is it? They’re going to fire!” Oragon was up above them all, upon one of the canon that flanked the iron gates, shouting, pointing to the palace. The noise was unbelievable, he could not believe that mere men could make such a noise, yet through it he heard clearly a different sound: tat, tat, a remote, cross, spinsterish voice, and then the scream of a panicked horse. They were pushing, forcing, ground and sucked step by step out of sunlight, into booming corridors, marble underfoot, garlands of roses on the ceilings overhead. Then all at once the ceiling rose up very high, and there was air and room to breathe; they were in the Assembly Room. Itale found he was close armlinked with Sangiusto, and began to comprehend that he with the crowd had forced their way into the palace. Oragon was there, up on the platform shouting orders, trying to gather the deputies out of the mob. Itale rubbed his arms which were sore, rubbed sweat off his forehead, stared around him. “Let’s get out of this, up to the gallery,” he said, and found himself hoarse, as if he had been shouting for a long time; perhaps he had, he did not know. They tried to get to the side door that led to the reporters’ gallery, but were stopped at once by a group coming in, men carrying heavy sacks. The sacks were put down beside the rostrum. The noise of voices in the huge room sank down steadily like waters at ebb. The rostrum was the center of the hush. With all the rest, Itale and Sangiusto came past, and saw that the sacks were dead men. The face of one of them had been shot off. His hands stuck out from his cuffs, stiff and posed, and his cracked shoes stuck up the same way. The ear was visible, normal, intact, a man’s ear, just below the bright red porridge of the face. The other man, middle-aged, did not look dead, but lay there startled, with open eyes. Above that, at the rostrum, they saw a blond, young, strong face, Livenne’s. He was speaking in a clear voice. “These two and the others killed paid a debt not owing. No more! We are not buying our country but claiming it as our inheritance, ours by right. Remember that! There is no need for violence, no need for sacrifice. We are the creditors, not the debtors!” Tears ran down Itale’s face as he stood there, then stopped as suddenly as they had started. He and the Italian began again to try to make their way to the side door and the gallery, but they never got there.

  For six hours they stood side by side against the back wall of the Assembly Room while the Assembly, a hundred and thirty deputies among thousands of others, held session. They voted to speak their own language in debate, voted this and all decrees subject to validation by the king alone, voted congratulations in the nation’s name to the new king of France, though they did not yet know who he was, the Duke of Bordeaux or Louis-Philippe of Orleans, and rumors now claimed Lafayette as the president of a new French republic. “They’ll pick Louis-Philippe,” Sangiusto said. “For a whole generation the old mushroom has been waiting, waiting. All things come to him who waits.” Itale nodded, not listening. He listened with strained attention to each speaker but found it difficult to understand or remember what they said. Prince Mogeskar now had the floor. His brusque, precise voice trembled with effort and age. “I will give my allegiance to the House of the Sovenskars, as did my ancestors, and yours. I will do so with joy, when the time comes. But the time has not come. We can call Matiyas Sovenskar king but can we crown him? Can we defend him? Metternich will hear our requests, for he needs peace, but he not listen to our defiance. We have not the strength to defy that power! For the king’s own sake I beg you to wait in determination, not to act rashly!” And all this seemed clear and true to Itale, until Oragon and others replied and proved with equal clarity that the only hope lay in rapid action, the installation of Matiyas Sovenskar on the throne before Austria could intervene. Fait accompli, bloodless revolution, fatal procrastination, Austrian troops, uprising of all Europe, the words spun round, and all the time the point of all the words was incomprehensible, was missing. It was five o’clock. Itale startled himself awake from a momentary standing doze and said, “Let’s get out of here, Francesco.” Again they did not get where they were headed. A deputation from the Roukh Palace had just come in: a dozen palace guards, Raskayneskar the minister of finance, and the prime minister. Cornelius went towards the rostrum, spoke to Livenne and Oragon, smiled his pleasant, bland smile. “Gentlemen, thank you for permitting me to interrupt your debate. I bear a message to you from the sovereign. Her Grace regrets the disappointment caused by the adjournment of session of the National Assembly and, attentive to the wishes of her people, will tomorrow request the reconvocation of the Assembly on Monday next. She has asked me to notify the present gathering that fraternal greetings have been sent to King Louis-Philippe of France, and to thank them for their share in maintaining law and order in the city during the day, trusting that such order will continue without incident, and that the—”

  “Without incident? What about the men shot down this morning?”

  The interruption from the floor set off a roar of voices, a surge towards the platform, checked by Oragon shouting out, “This is not a gathering, this is the Assembly of the Nation! Tell the duchess that until King Matiyas reaches Krasnoy the sovereign is here, in this hall! Tell her that peace and order depend on her submission to us, the government of the kingdom!”

  Cornelius looked at him, looked around, and shrugged. “This is simply folly,” he said. He turned to go, and because he was decisive and the crowd was more intent upon the speaker, he got out, with the chalk-faced Raskayneskar and the dozen
guardsmen. “The die is cast!” Oragon was roaring; the hall seethed fantastically in turmoil, frenzy. “Come along, come along,” Sangiusto said, and this time they got out, and stood dazed outside the palace in the still, clear evening air.

  At midnight Itale was standing in the darkness on Ebroiy Street a block from Roukh Square, sucking one of his finger-joints that had been scraped raw in handling cobblestones, and carefully studying the torchlit barrier that had been raised across the street where it debouched into the square. Two men near him were arguing in a dreary, savage monotone; he could not distinguish one voice from the other: “Three thousand militia three miles down river at Basre—We’ve got the Roukh cut off—Count on the militia joining us—Who says they will, they’ve got the guns—The guns—” Still nearer him two women sat on the curbstone, one suckling a baby, and they spoke now and then: “So then I told him, I forgot the eggs, I told him…”—“Oh aye, mother of God, what can you do at a time like this?” One sighed, one laughed, “Save up and wait, I told him!…” Men ran by up the street, followed by a queer hollow roaring sound. A group of thirty or more came pulling and pushing a black thing up the street towards the barricade, a cannon. The iron wheels made a gobbling roar on the stones, torches flared around making the shadows lurch and fly. Itale looked down in the torchlight. The baby was very young; its head, lying on the mother’s bare arm, was unbelievably small. After the cannon had gone by he could hear the small smacking noises the baby made in sucking, the women’s dry easy voices, “So I says Oh don’t tell me, you old sow, I didn’t hatch out last week,” and the men arguing, “The streets—The guns—” He went on up the street to the barricade and rejoined Sangiusto there.