“Sometimes,” said Leroy, turning towards him; “I pity kings!”
“I’ faith, so do I!” returned Valdor. “But only sometimes! And if you had seen as much of them as I have, the ‘sometimes’ would be rare!”
“Yet you play before them?” put in Max Graub.
“Because I must do so to satisfy the impresarios who advertise me to the public,” said Valdor. “Alas! — why will the public be so foolish as to wish their favourite artist to play before kings and queens? Seldom, if ever, do these Royal people understand music, — still less do they understand the musician! Believe me, I have been treated as the veriest scullion by these jacks-in-office; and that I still permit myself to play before them is a duty I owe to this Brotherhood, — because it deepens and sustains my bond with you all. There is no king on the face of the earth who has dignity and nobleness of character enough to command my respect, — much less my reverence! I take nothing from kings, remember! — they dare not offer me money — they dare not insult me with a jewelled pin, such as they would give to a station-master who sees a Royal train off. Only the other day, when I was summoned to play before a certain Majesty, a lord-in-waiting addressed me when I arrived with the insolent words— ‘You are late, Monsieur Valdor! — You have kept the King waiting!’ I replied— ‘Is that so? I regret it! But having kept his Majesty waiting, I will no longer detain him; au revoir!’ And I returned straightway to the carriage in which I had come. Majesty did without his music that evening, owing to the insolence of his flunkey-man! Whether I ever play before him again or not, is absolutely immaterial to me!”
“Tell me,” said Pasquin Leroy, pushing the flask of wine over to him as he spoke; “What is it that makes kings so unloved? I hate them myself! — but let us analyse the reasons why.”
“Discuss — discuss!” cried Paul Zouche; “Why are kings hated? Let Thord answer first!”
“Yes — yes! Let Thord answer first!” was echoed a dozen times.
Thord, thus appealed to, looked up. His melancholy deep eyes were sombre, yet full of fire, — lonely eyes they were, yearning for love.
“Why are kings hated?” he repeated; “Because today they are the effete representatives of an effete system. I can quite imagine that if, as in olden times, kings had maintained a position of personal bravery, and personal influence on their subjects, they would have been as much beloved as they are now despised. But what we have to see and to recognise is this: in one land we hear of a sovereign who speculates hand-and-glove with low-born Jew contractors and tradesmen, — another monarch makes no secret of his desire to profit financially out of a gambling hell started in his dominions, — another makes his domestic affairs the subject of newspaper comment, — another is always apostrophising the Almighty in public; — another is insane or stupid, — and so on through the whole gamut. Is it not natural that an intelligent People should resent the fact that their visibly governing head is a gambler, or a voluptuary? Myself, I think the growing unpopularity of kings is the result of their incapability for kingship.”
“Now let me speak!” cried Paul Zouche excitedly; “There is another root to the matter, — a root like that of a certain tropical orchid, which according to superstition, is shaped like a man, and utters a shriek when it is pulled out of the earth! Pull out this screaming mystery, — hatred of kings! In the first place it is because they are hateful in themselves, — because they have been brought up and educated to take an immeasurable and all-absorbing interest in their own identity, rather than in the lives, hopes and aims of their subjects. In the second — as soon as they occupy thrones, they become overbearing to their best friends. It is a well-known fact that the more loyal and faithful you are to a king, the more completely is he neglectful of you! ‘Put not your trust in princes,’ sang old David. He knew how untrustworthy they were, being a king himself, and a pious one to boot! Thirdly and lastly, — they only give their own personal attention to their concubines, and leave all their honest and respectable subjects to be dealt with by servants and secretaries. Our King, for example, never smiles so graciously as on Madame Vantine, the wife of Vantine the wine-grower; — and he buys Vantine’s wines as well as his wife, which brings in a double profit to the firm!”
Leroy looked up.
“Are you sure of that?”
Zouche met his eyes with a stare and a laugh.
“Sure? Of course I am sure! By my faith, your resemblance to his Majesty is somewhat striking to-night, my bold Leroy! The same straight brows — the same inscrutable, woman-conquering smile! I studied his portrait after the offer of the hundred golden pieces — and I swear you might be his twin brother!”
“I told you so!” replied Leroy imperturbably;— “It is a hateful resemblance! I wish I could rid myself of it. Still after all, there is something unique in being countenanced like a King, and minded as a Socialist!”
“True!” put in Thord gently;— “I am satisfied, Pasquin Leroy, that you are an honest comrade!”
Leroy met his eyes with a grave smile, and touched his glass by way of acknowledgement.
“You do not ask me,” he said then, “whether I have been able to serve your Cause in any way since last we met?”
“This is not our regular meeting,” said Johan Zegota; “We ask no questions till the general monthly assembly.”
“I see!” And Leroy looked whimsically meditative— “Still, as we are all friends and brothers here, there is no harm in conveying to you the fact that I have so far moved, in the appointed way, that Carl Pérousse has ordered the discovery and arrest of one Pasquin Leroy, supposed to be a spy on the military defences of the city!”
Lotys gave a little cry.
“Not possible! So soon!”
“Quite possible, Madame,” said Leroy inclining his head towards her deferentially. “I have lost no time in doing my duty!” And his eyes flashed upon her with a passionate, half-eager questioning. “I must carry out my Chief’s commands!”
“But you are in danger, then?” said Sergius Thord, bending an anxious look of enquiry upon him.
“Not more so than you, or any of my comrades are,” replied Leroy; “I have commenced my campaign — and I have no doubt you will hear some results of it ere long!”
He spoke so quietly and firmly, yet with such an air of assurance and authority, that something of an electric thrill passed through the entire company, and all eyes were fixed on him in mingled admiration and wonderment.
“Of the ‘Corruption of the State,’ concerning which our fair teacher has spoken to-night,” he continued, with another quick glance at Lotys— “there can be no manner of doubt. But we should, I think, say the ‘Corruption of the Ministry’ rather than of the State. It is not because a few stock-jobbers rule the Press and the Cabinet, that the State is necessarily corrupt. Remove the corruptors, — sweep the dirt from the house — and the State will be clean.”
“It will require a very long broom!” said Paul Zouche. “Take David Jost, for example, — he is the fat Jew-spider of several newspaper webs, — and to sweep him out is not so easy. His printed sheets are read by the million; and the million are deluded into believing him a reliable authority!”
“Nothing so easy as to prove him unreliable,” said Leroy composedly; “And then — —”
“Then the million will continue to read his journals out of sheer curiosity, to see how long a liar can go on lying!” said Zouche;— “Besides a Jew can turn his coat a dozen times a day; he has inherited Joseph’s ‘coat of many colours’ to suit many opinions. At present Jost supports Pérousse, and calls him the greatest statesman living; but if Pérousse were once proved a fraud, Jost would pen a sublimely-conscientious leading article, beginning in this strain;—’ We are now at liberty to confess that we always had our doubts of M. Pérousse!’”
A murmur of angry laughter went round the board.
“There was an article this evening in one of Jost’s off-shoot journals,” went on Zouche, “which must ha
ve been paid for at a considerable cost. It chanted the praises of one Monsignor Del Fortis, — who, it appears, preached a sermon on ‘National Education’ the other day, and told all the sleepy, yawning people how necessary it was to have Roman Catholic schools in every town and village, in order that souls might be saved. The article ended by saying— ‘We hear on good authority that his Majesty the King has been pleased to grant a considerable portion of certain Crown lands to the Jesuit Order, for the necessary building of a monastery and schools’ — —”
“That is a lie!” broke in Pasquin Leroy, with sudden vehemence. “The King is in many respects a scoundrel, but he does not go back on his word!”
Axel Regor looked fixedly across at him, with a warning flash in the light of his cold languid eyes.
“But how do you know that the King has given his word?”
“It was in the paper,” said Leroy, more guardedly; “I was reading about it, as you know, on the very night I encountered Thord.”
“Ah! But you must recollect, my friend, that a statement in the papers is never true nowadays!” said Max Graub, with a laugh; “Whenever I read anything in the newspaper, unless it is an official telegram, I know it is a lie; and even official telegrams have been known to emanate from unofficial sources!”
By this time supper was nearly over, and the landlord, clearing the remains of the heavier fare, set fruit and wine on the board. Sergius Thord filled his glass, and made a sign to his companions to do the same. Then he stood up.
“To Lotys!” he said, his fine eyes darkening with the passion of his thought. “To Lotys, who inspires our best work, and helps us to retain our noblest ideals!”
All present sprang to their feet.
“To Lotys!”
Pasquin Leroy fixed a straight glance on the subject of the toast, sitting quietly at the head of the table.
“To Lotys!” he repeated; “And may she always be as merciful as she is strong!”
She lifted her dark-blue slumbrous eyes, and met his keen scrutinizing look. A very slight tremulous smile flickered across her lips. She inclined her head gently, and in the same mute fashion thanked them all.
“Play to us, Valdor!” she then said; “And so make answer for me to our friends’ good wishes!”
Valdor dived under the table, and brought up his violin case, which he unlocked with jealous tenderness, lifting his instrument as carefully as though it were a sleeping child whom he feared to wake. Drawing the bow across the strings, he invoked a sweet plaintive sound, like the first sigh of the wind among the trees; then, without further preliminary wandered off into a strange labyrinth of melody, wherein it seemed that the voices of women and angels clamoured one against the other, — the appeals of earth with the refusals of Heaven, — the loneliness of life with the fulness of immortality, — so, rising, falling, sobbing, praying, alternately, the music expostulated with humanity in its throbbing chords, till it seemed as if some Divine interposition could alone end the heart-searching argument. Every man sat motionless and mute, listening; Paul Zouche, with his head thrown back and eyes closed as in a dream, — Johan Zegota’s hard, plain and careworn face growing softer and quieter in its expression, — while Sergius Thord, leaning on one elbow, covered his brow with one hand to shade the lines of sorrow there.
When Valdor ceased playing, there was a burst of applause.
“You play before kings, — kings should be proud to hear you!” said Leroy.
“Ah! So they should,” responded Valdor promptly; “Only it happens that they are not! They treat me merely as a laquais de place, — just as they would treat Zouche, had he accepted his Sovereign’s offer. But this I will admit, — that mediocre musicians always get on very well with Royal persons! I have heard a very great Majesty indeed praise a common little American woman’s abominable singing, as though she were a prima-donna, and saw him give a jewelled cigar-case to an amateur pianist, whose fingers rattled on the keyboard like bones on a tom-tom. But then the common little American woman invited his Majesty’s ‘chères amies’ to her house; and the amateur pianist was content to lose money to him at cards! Wheels within wheels, my friend! In a lesser degree the stock-jobber who sets a little extra cash rolling on the Exchange is called an ‘Empire Builder.’ It is a curious world! But kings were never known to be ‘proud’ of any really ‘great’ men in either art or literature; on the contrary, they were always afraid of them, and always will be! Among musicians, the only one who ever got decently honoured by a monarch was Richard Wagner, — and the world swears that his Royal patron was mad!”
Paul Zouche opened his eyes, filled his glass afresh, and tossed down the liquor it contained at a gulp.
“Before we have any more music,” he said, “and before the little Pequita gives us the dance which she has promised, — not to us, but to Lotys — we ought to have prayers!”
A loud laugh answered this strange proposition.
“I say we ought to have prayers!” repeated Zouche with semi-solemn earnestness,— “You talk of news, — news in telegram, — news in brief, — official scratchings for the day and hour, — and do you take no thought for the fact that his Holiness the Pope is ill — perhaps dying?”
He stared wildly round upon them all; and a tolerant smile passed over the face of the company.
“Well, if that be so, Paul,” said a man next to him, “it is not to be wondered at. The Pope has arrived at a great age!”
“No age at all! — no age at all!” declared Zouche. “A saint of God should live longer than a pauper! What of the good old lady admitted to hospital the other day whose birth certificate proved her beyond doubt to be one hundred and twenty-one years old? The dear creature had not married; — nor has his Holiness the Pope, — the real cause of death is in neither of them! Why should he not live as long as his aged sister, possessing, as he does the keys of Heaven? He need not unlock the little golden door, even for himself, unless he likes. That is true orthodoxy! Pasquin Leroy, you bold imitation of a king, more wine!”
Leroy filled the glass he held out to him. The glances of the company told him Zouche was ‘on,’ and that it was no good trying to stem the flow of his ideas, or check the inconsequential nature of his speech. Lotys had moved her chair a little back from the table, and with both arms encircling the child, Pequita, was talking to her in low and tender tones.
“Brethren, let us pray!” cried Zouche; “For all we know, while we sit here carousing and drinking to the health of our incomparable Lotys, the soul of St. Peter’s successor may be careering through Sphere-Forests, and over Planet-Oceans, up to its own specially built and particularly furnished Heaven! There is only one Heaven, as we all know, — and the space is limited, as it only holds the followers of St. Peter, the good disciple who denied Christ!”
“That is an exploded creed, Zouche,” said Thord quietly; “No man of any sense or reason believes such childish nonsense nowadays! The most casual student of astronomy knows better.”
“Astronomy! Fie, for shame!” And Zouche gave a mock-solemn shake of the head; “A wicked science! A great heresy! What are God’s Facts to the Church Fallacies? Science proves that there are millions and millions of solar systems, — millions and millions of worlds, no doubt inhabited; — yet the Church teaches that there is only one Heaven, specially reserved for good Roman Catholics; and that St. Peter and his successors keep the keys of it. God, — the Deity — the Creator, — the Supreme Being, has evidently nothing at all to do with it. In fact, He is probably outside it! And of a surety Christ, with His ideas of honesty and equality, could never possibly get into it!”
“There you are right!” said Valdor; “Your words remind me of a conversation I overheard once between a great writer of books and a certain Prince of the blood Royal. ‘Life is a difficult problem!’ said the Prince, smoking a fat cigar. ‘To the student, it is, Sir,’ replied the author; ‘But to the sensualist, it is no more than the mud-stye of the swine, — he noses the refuse and is happy!
He has no need of the Higher life, and plainly the Higher life has no need of him. Of course,’ he added with covert satire, ‘your Highness believes in a Higher life?’ ‘Of course, of course!’ responded the Royal creature, unconscious of any veiled sarcasm; ‘We must be Christians before anything!’ And that same evening this hypocritical Highness ‘rooked’ a foolish young fellow of over one thousand English pounds!”
“Perfectly natural!” said Zouche. “The fashionable estimate of Christianity is to go to church o’ Sundays, and say ‘I believe in God,’ and to cheat at cards on all the other days of the week, as active testimony to a stronger faith in the devil!”
“And with it all, Zouche,” said Lotys suddenly; “There is more good in humanity than is apparent.”
“And more bad, beloved Lotys,” returned Paul. “Tout le deux se disent! But let us think of the Holy Father! — he who, after long years of patient and sublime credulity, is now, for all we know, bracing himself to take the inevitable plunge into the dark waters of Eternity! Poor frail old man! Who would not pity him! His earthly home has been so small and cosy and restricted, — he has been taken such tender care of — the faithful have fallen at his feet in such adoring thousands, — and now — away from all this warmth and light and incense, and colour of pictures and stained-glass windows, and white statuary and purple velvets, and golden-fringed palanquins, — now — out into the cold he must go! — out into the darkness and mystery and silence! — where all the former generations of the world, immense and endless, and all the old religions, are huddled away in the mist of the mouldered past! — out into the thick blackness, where maybe the fiery heads of Bel and the Dragon may lift themselves upward and leer at him! — or he may meet the frightful menace of some monstrous Mexican deity, once worshipped with the rites of blood! — out — out into the unknown, unimaginable Amazement must the poor naked Soul go shuddering on the blast of death, to face he truly knows not what! — but possibly he has such a pitiful blind trust in good, that he may be re-transformed into some pleasant living consciousness that shall be more agreeable even than that of Pope of Rome! ‘Mourir c’est rien, — mais souffrir!’ That is the hard part of it! Let us all pray for the Pope, my friends! — he is an old man!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 553