INTRODUCING A GOOD BEGGAR AND A BAD KING
Beautiful and broken fountains, keep you still your
Sultan's dream?
_The Golden Journey to' Samarkand._
Despite any irritation he might feel in finding his pretty flirtation
degenerate into a sentimental romance which might end ill, for a week
Norman led the golden life, and, after all, the golden life can only be
led in sunny lands, by him who has a mistress on his arm and music in
his soul, and it never lasts more than one week in the same place. The
golden life in Alsander means swimming, sunstruck memories of old walls
and young faces; it means prospects down tortuous streets of blue
mountains towering to the sky or of blue skies falling into bluer seas.
It means the discovery of an elegant fountain down this way, of a Roman
inscription hidden in moss down that. It means the first view of the
Cathedral square. For the façade of the Cathedral of Alsander, first
seen of a sudden some early morning, when the square is still, seems an
impossible thing--a mirage: it is so vast, so lovely, and so old.
But for Norman in Alsander, as for many another, the chill Sunday of
disappointment followed the week-days of delight. Naturally the first
disappointment was Peronella. We have already hinted at Norman's
disappointment. It did not vanish, that disappointment: it grew. Can
beauty be boring? Ah! ye gods, it can, if one has to talk to it, and it
is stupid. But was Peronella not romantic? Oh, yes, she was indeed, but
romantic with a "k." She was romantick like the fair misses of a hundred
years ago. But is not the romantick the same as the romantic in
principle? Oh, yes, indeed, the sentiment is the same; but to be
romantic requires intellect, and to be romantick requires none. But was
not Peronella educated? Indeed she was, most abominably educated, quite
enough to ruin all the fresh roses of her nature. She had not, could
not, alas! read Ella Wheeler Wilcox, her poems, but, oh! how she would
have loved them had she known them! Marie Corelli she did read; you may
buy her works in Alsandrian. But was she incapable of appreciating true
literature? Oh, no, she adored Shakespeare and Byron, which she read in
translations. You see, her mother had ideas and considered herself a
lady. Nevertheless Peronella began to bore Norman: the spell was broken!
And once that spell broken, other enchantments lost their hold. The
mirage lifted from the city of Alsander. The illusion began to
disappear one day when it rained, and the next day, when Norman walked
out alone after a sulky quarrel, it had utterly vanished. The rain had
ceased, but the sun had revived the smells of Alsander (which were
ubiquitous, insinuating, sometimes crushing) without drying the streets.
Norman slipped at every step he took in the glutinous mud. The utter
disrepair of the cobbled streets made walking bad enough at any time,
heartrending after rain. As for driving, it was a wonder there was a
carriage in the place. Across one of the narrowest but most frequented
roads gaped a fabulously large hole which had perhaps been opened for
some vague drainage or burial operations. The displaced cobbles formed a
little circular hill all round this preposterous cavity, which looked in
consequence more like the crater of Etna than an honest hole in the
road, and carriages had positively to be lifted over the hill into the
valley and then over the hill again. A couple of men could have put it
straight in half an hour--but this was Alsander.
The question will arise, "But what of the pavements?" In Alsander, as a
rule, there are no pavements, the roads being flanked on each side by
little running sewers. Where pavements do exist they are used for idle
shopmen to obstruct with their chairs or pushing shopmen to bar with
their merchandise. They also have a way of coming to an end in the
gutter after a few yards, just as you are getting your stride in, and
then tempting the foolish to wade across the road by casually sprouting
up on the opposite side.
Norman had all an Englishman's hatred of discomfort and waste; he felt
that Blaindon could put Alsander to shame in the matter of public works;
he feared the smells would give him typhoid, and he began to hate
Alsander, and he heard the call of Roon, the God of Going, as it is
written in the _Gods of Pegana._
Besides all this he was frightened and puzzled. He had fallen into a
trap. He was looked upon as a prospective son-in-law by the Widow
Prasko--and that was ever so largely his own fault. Englishmen were
accounted fabulously rich, and this one was evidently handsome as well.
Peronella was already airing her proprietorship to the envy and
admiration of the other maids of Alsander. Then Cesano was a nuisance
with his little tricks, for he was as sincere as he was ridiculous--the
complement of Peronella with no redeeming beauty. He was only at the
scowling stage at present, but would certainly advance, in accordance
with the sound early Renaissance tradition of the country, to powder in
the coffee, snake in the boot, or knife in the back. But for all this,
Norman was chivalrous and conscientious enough, and no coward, either;
and though he felt it would be best for all concerned for him to leave
his baggage and run away by the next train, his sense of honour was in
conflict with anything that smacked of dishonesty or funk. Besides, he
had not so much money left; he had to decide whether he would try and
make a living here or elsewhere, and decide soon. It was part of his
travel scheme (which was not so fantastic, after all) to work his
passage, so to speak, in some way or other from place to place. But as
yet he had not earned a farthing or so much as looked for work. This
also depressed him.
Thus it was that the great glass dome of his happiness was shattered,
and the last hour of the golden life fell like a golden leaf from the
tree of existence. And as for that moment when he heard all the bells of
morning ringing in his ears and smiled at a girl with her pails of
water, that was not a week but five thousand years ago, when all the
skies were blue.
Darkly brooding and much disillusioned, therefore, our hero came to the
Royal Castle of Alsander. He had not seen it close at hand before. It
stands far from the centre of the town, on the steepest part of the
rock, an unconquerable edifice of faceted stone, its Palladian gateway
flanked by two stupendous fat uncompromising towers, with hundreds of
yards of unbroken, unwindowed wall slanting outwards to the base,
continuing beyond the towers to right and left. Two sleepy sentries, in
a fine old uniform, holding in their hands some weapon, vaguely
mediaeval, guarded the entrance.
The strength, one might almost say the ugliness, of the castle pleased
Norman's mood. He was just beginning to enjoy the scene, leaning by a
fine old statue which stood in the midst of the square on a low pedestal
and represented, standing twice life-size, helmeted and hand to sword,
the hero King of Alsander, Kradenda the First, the builder of the
castle. He was gazing round intently, when an old crouching beggar
interrupted him and asked him in a sort of hoarse whisper if he wanted
to see the castle. Norman, with a disgusted and pitying glance at the
filthy rags of the mendicant, offered him silver to be left in peace.
"I do not want silver," said the old man. "Look you here"--and he tossed
into the air a heavy purse that hung by his girdle--"I want to show you
the castle."
"Is it open to all visitors?" inquired Norman.
"No, but if I take you we shall pass," replied the vagrant, with
assurance. Norman was surprised into accepting; more surprised still
when the heavy-eyed sentries gave a sort of furtive salute to his
disreputable guide; and most surprised on viewing the interior of the
castle. "At all events there was one more thing to see in Alsander
before I left," said he to himself.
For inside the frowning battlemented walls, instead of harsh keeps and
dungeons, were the beautiful ruins of a beautiful garden. There was a
riot of greenery, to which roses, orange blossom, jasmine and hybiscus
gave the prominent colours and scents. The grass was sprinkled with
cyclamen, asphodel, red anemones and with wild remnants of old
cultivation. There were toy stone Greek temples, little cottages like
English cottages, painted lath and plaster summer-houses like Turkish
summer-houses, showing the bare bones of their construction at every
windy corner.
"Who made all this?" inquired Norman.
The old beggar turned away from the garden and pointed to the vast
encircling quadrilateral of the wall, as grand from within as from
without.
"This wall," he said, standing up straight and waving his hand around
with curious enthusiasm, and speaking in a vibrating but refined voice
which ill befitted his rags and mouldering beard, "is the work of
Kradenda the Great, founder of the power and glory of Alsander, against
whose statue you were leaning in the square. Now I know many stories of
the great Kradenda, and will tell you one, my lord. In those days the
Saracen galleys had driven the people of this land up into the hills,
and the plain was all a waste. Now Kradenda was a shepherd lad, and one
day he went out at the head of his fellows and burnt the fleet of the
infidels...."
"Oh, I have heard the story," said Norman. "Milord is impatient," said
the beggar. "But I am glad that after so short a stay in Alsander he
should know at least one story of Kradenda the Great. There are, of
course, many other stories. My lord, have you heard how King Kradenda
recultivated the plain?"
"No, I have not heard that story. Tell me.
"Well, I will tell you. It was like this. Malaria had gripped those good
rich lands, and not a soul would reclaim them for fear of disease. The
Great King ordered his people to recultivate the plain. But so many died
of fever that they murmured against the order. Thereupon he called to
them and told them that they were soldiers and would they run from an
enemy? 'Never,' they said, 'if he led them,' 'Do you not see, then,'
said the King, 'that fever is our enemy now that I have driven off the
infidel: you must fight it and die for your country if needs be.' 'We
will! obey,' said the old chief who had led the deputation, 'but only if
you lead us.' Whereupon? the King laughed and bade them follow him, and
there and then he pitched his tent in the filthiest part of the marsh
and began to dig a channel for the waters with his own hands. In that
way the marsh was soon drained and dry, and such a man was the first
Kradenda."
"That is a good story," said Norman, "and well and concisely told. But
tell me now about the garden and the summer-houses and the fountain."
"What of them?" said the guide. "The summer-houses are crumbling, the
garden is a wilderness and the fountains play no more."
"Weird talk from a beggar," thought Norman. "But who built them?" he
inquired aloud. "They are quite beautiful."
"They were built by King Basilandron: he was quite beautiful, too."
"I have never heard of him, though my landlady, who is a wise woman, has
told me much of the history of your charming country."
"Ah, we do not talk much of him in Alsander. Here is his name, cut in
the wood."
He showed Norman an inscription on the side of a little summer-house
with wooden tracery and a faded blue paint, which ran: ΒΑΣΙΛΑΝΔΡΩΝ.
"But why is it in Greek letters?" inquired Norman.
"He would have everything in Greek. He it was who called the river
Ianthe. It was known as Vorka before."
"You know the history of Alsander well," said Norman, more and more
astonished at the language and erudition of his guide.
"I love Alsander," said the old man. "I know all the stones of this
castle and all the stories of Alsander's past."
"Then tell me the story of King Basilandron," said Norman, "for I have
never heard it. And after that I shall ask you to tell me the story of
your life: for rags do not make you a beggar."
"Neither does my erudition prove me to be a prince in disguise," said
the old fellow with a smile. "But I would rather even tell you the story
of my life, tragic as it is, than tell you the story of King
Basilandron, which is the tragedy of a nation, and one that those who
love Alsander do not care to tell.
"Tell me first the story of Basilandron and then the story of your
life."
"It is little we poor citizens of Alsander can refuse to the inquiring
tourist," said the old man with acerbity. "And may the devil torment you
for a member of a great nation that can look after itself. We, you know,
are supposed to be incapable of self-government, especially since we
went bankrupt a year or two ago, and actually dared to ruin some French
bondholders. Since that day the Great Powers have been terrifying us
with an international commission. If ever there is a free fight in a
café here, or a dog-fight in the square, some foreigner writes to a
European newspaper about the anarchy in Alsander. American missionaries,
who believe in Noah's Ark and the historical existence of Methusalem,
revile the degraded superstitions of our peasants who still hold to
their immemorial festivals in honour of the water that bursts from the
rock or the grape that grows dark on the vine. And now we are threatened
with inspectors, all of varying nationalities, to avoid all appearance
of intrigue or possibility of jealousy. You see our strategic importance
is the only importance left to us--otherwise we should long ago have
disappeared. So we are to have a Spanish Financial Inspector and a Swiss
Sanitary Board. Our gendarmerie will be organized by a virtuous Dane.
Our agriculture will be modernized by an energetic Dutchman. Our public
conveniences will doubtless be improved by one of your own compatriots."
"My compatriot," said Norman, "will not be unoccupied. But I insist upon
your telling me the tale of King Basilandron."
"I will tell you, milord, since you are so importunate, but forgive me
if I have been impolite. These things touch me so near.
"Well, then, King Basilandron ruled in days when certain ideas from
Italy, having reached Alsander, had turned the heads even of sober
people and made great havoc of the Court. It was in those days that all
this wood and plaster work which you so much admire was erected; it was
in this garden that night after night King Basilandron held revel, to
the great pleasure of those engaged therein. The Court was all crammed
with fiddlers, painters, poets, dancers, barbers and buffoons. But they
were quack fiddlers, feeble painters, vile poets and clumsy dancers, who
would not have dared to move a leg in Italy. But the barbers and
buffoons were such as the world has never seen, so dexterous and
stylish. Need I tell you how the country was taxed to maintain this
alien population, or how the people groaned and murmured, or how the
aesthetic monarch kept them quiet and amused by diverting pageants? All
sorts of pageants there were--of beggars, thieves, madmen, lovers,
heretics (real heretics, subsequently burnt), queens of antiquity,
widows, tigers and Turks. But a pageant was the end of the whole
business, as I will tell you now.
"One day the King resolved to re-establish the worship called of
Orpheus, to the great joy of his friends. He clothed himself as Bacchus,
though per Bacco he looked more like Silenus (if the painters of his day
did not make him more ugly than he was, which in those days was not the
custom of Court painters). His escort was a troop of noble ladies
clothed in forest branches and none too leafy: and one summer evening
under the full moon off they went singing to the mountains. After they
had danced their fill and sinned God knows what sins, the moon set and
back they swooped on the city in a sort of make-believe battle line; and
there at the gates was the army of Alsander mumming in Greek tunics
waiting to receive their amorous attack. But at that very hour a
different host was approaching Alsander--forgotten barbarians from
Ulmreich--and the two hosts met. And that is all--and that has been all
for the glory and power of Alsander," concluded the old man, bitterly.
"But Alsander is independent still."
"An independence handed her as a gift by Ulmreich and Gantha, her two
great neighbours, is not much worth having. The day one of them is
strong enough to seize us from the other, we shall go. Or if that
international commission really sits, it is as good as death to our
little nation. We shall never more be able to raise our heads--and
chiefly through the fault of King Basilandron."
"But much might be done now," objected Norman, with a certain
breeziness. "Why should Alsander have to wait for an international
commission before getting her streets paved? Look at my boots."
"I would rather look at your eyes than at your feet, young Englishman.
As for Alsander, she cannot be clean while she is corrupt. That would be
hypocrisy, and we have never sunk so low as that. But in Bermondsey the
streets are excellently paved. And, by God! Alsander, in all its poverty
and decay, is not so vile a place as Bermondsey, nor are its people so
brutal or so blind as yours."
"We have no sun," said Norman. "But come, you have been in England, you
are a wonderful old man. Tell me your story now that you have told the
story of Basilandron."
"I cannot tell my story," said the old man, shaking as if with sorrow.
"My tragedy is so little when I think of the tragedy of my people that I
can only say--Alas for Alsander!"
"You, sir, are a great patriot," said Norman, touched into respect of
all this passion in all those rags.
"I, sir, am a very old man," replied the beggar, and Norman could not
tell why the reply was so appropriate.
"I understand now," said Norman, "why you hate these pretty pavilions
and love those old walls. And I suppose the present state of Alsander
must distress you. But surely some young and vigorous ruler could still
do wonders for Alsander? I have been told, to my great surprise, that
the King, though young, is insane. I have heard also that he usually
lives in this castle, but that the Jewish doctor who attends him, and
who is said to be the cleverest man in Alsander (and some say the
wickedest), has sent him to England or Ulmreich or somewhere as a last
hope. If only a new and vigorous King could rule this land awhile, there
is still a chance of greatness; but it is astonishing that the people
seem neither to know nor care exactly who or where their King is, or
what his true state of health may be. Perhaps you are better informed? I
heard myself that the King had been sent to some European asylum to be
cured, but no one seems to know to which one."
"As to that point, I can only assure you, my lord, that there is no hope
for the King's sanity. It is pure degeneration of race."
"Then I inquired why the heir to the throne was not installed in his
place. No one seemed to like to talk of that subject. But it appears she
is a girl living somewhere in Ulmreich, very young, and as mad as the
King."
"I do not think the young lady in question, whom I once had the honour
of meeting, is exactly mad," said the beggar. "A little wild, one might
say, and her guardians are wise enough to let her do as she pleases. I
expect our illustrious Regent has been spreading that fable."
"You mean Duke Vorza? I understand he is virtually despot of Alsander
now. I have heard a great deal of grumbling against him, but nothing
very definite, though I have heard some people say that the King is not
really so mad as his physician and the Regent pretend."
"Duke Vorza," said the beggar, "is a man of great talent and ambition.
He does not like the people of Alsander to talk very much about
anything. To have seen him kiss the peasant children in the streets on
the day he raised the tax on matches was what you might call a lesson in
political economy. It is marvellous, too, how he manages the city
council--a rather enlightened body of merchants and professional men
and opposed to his reactionary policy. He distributes invitations to
dinner at exactly the right moment, and if a dinner fails he decorates.
Sforelli (who is only considered a scoundrel because of his dark
features and undoubted ability) is almost the only one of them man
enough to withstand a title or a decoration. The consequence is he dare
not venture out of his house after dark for fear of meeting one of
Vorza's ruffians in the street. Oh, there are many dark stories to tell
of Vorza, but such is the stupidity of popular rumour it has seized on
the most improbable, Vorza and Sforelli, though outwardly amiable to
each other, are in secret bitter enemies, and as for the madness of the
King, I assure you he is as mad as anyone could pretend him to be."
"But no one seems to have seen him for years," objected Norman.
"I have, but few others," said the mendi cant.
"There's something terrible about a King whom his people seem never to
have seen," said Norman.
"Listen to me," said the old man in a low and dramatic whisper. "I may
not be quite what I seem, as you surmise, and I may have powers even you
do not suspect. Would you like to see the King of Alsander and discover
for yourself how terrible he is?"
"Do you mean to say he is here?" exclaimed Norman. "Is it not true that
he is in Europe--and do the people really not know where he is?"
"Did you not hear that he was expected back?"
"There was a queer rumour, now I come to think of it," said Norman,
thinking of his talks with Pedro the cobbler and others, "that he was
coming back cured."
"Well, he has returned, not cured, and that is all," said the old man.
Norman started a little.
"I seem to recognize your voice," he said. "Surely I have met you
before?"
"Don't you remember, my lord, the old tramp you met in Gantha, who told
you all about the beauties of Alsander?"
"Why, that eloquent old fellow, was it you? It was you, then, persuaded
me to come to this country. I have much to thank you for: it is a
wonderful country indeed. But it was dark on the road that night and I
could hardly see you. So you are he. But you were not talking Alsandrian
but English."
"I have wandered, and you have learnt Alsandrian."
"Yes. I found the little book you left in my pocket. But tell me, who
are you? Of course, I cannot believe you to be a beggar. Enough of these
mysterious tricks. You are a man of eloquence and learning. You must be
a person of diplomatic importance, if you can really show me the mad
King of Alsander."
"You shall really see him as I promised," said the old man, and making a
trumpet of his hands he called out "Yohann! Yohann!" in a remarkably
sonorous voice. Immediately there appeared from the lodge beneath the
gate a sentry at whose girdle dangled two large keys. He came up to them
and saluted, but made no remark, and in silence they all three went
across the gardens to the vast loopholed wall opposite the gate. The
sentry opened an insignificant little door half hidden in the
wallflowers that dangled from the crevices between the mighty stones.
"The walls are thicker than you supposed, are they not, my lord?" said
the tattered guide.
Norman gasped with astonishment. A huge corridor pierced the wall from
side to side and top to bottom,--a corridor at least a hundred feet long
and eighty feet high, yet only of a breadth for three men to walk side
by side and lit only by a tiny window at the extreme end. Norman having
walked over to it saw that the window commanded a sweeping view of the
plain of Alsander, the river Ianthe, the sea, the mountains, and also
noted that no one could look in through that window whoever might look
out, for the wall on that side is built on the top of a sheer precipice
of rock. Meanwhile the second key was being applied to another small
door half-way down the corridor on the left. It opened groaning; the
centre of the corridor was flooded with a shaft of light.
"Enter, my lord," said the mysterious guide. "This is the throne-room."
It was a most presentable type of disjointed majesty, this throne-room,
the apotheosis of the ruined summer-house outside, a wreck of what had
once been a gorgeous but not entirely tasteless mass of plaster gilding
and paint in the style of the late Renaissance. Sham large windows had
been let in to hide the little grills in the wall; in the intervening
space the two hooks were still visible where once lamps had swung to
flood the hall from without with artificial daylight. The ceiling, a
false one, for the room went up of old to the height of the wall, like
the corridor outside it, was painted with a device in cunning
perspective, representing the apotheosis (among very pink angels) of
King Basilandron, the same who christened the river Ianthe and was
responsible for the disaster of the Bacchic revels. The picture, and
indeed the entire room, dated from his lifetime. The wall decorations,
however (according to information which Norman subsequently gathered),
were added by his son--very tasteful designs of apes and
Chinamen--_singeries_ and _chinoiseries_. Basilandron II evidently
disagreed with his father's idealistic tendencies, and held a firm
belief that art should not aim at expressing any meaning, not even a
lascivious one, but should rather consist of graceful and intricate
designs. In this way he anticipated many of the most brilliant modern
theorists. Although these panels had suffered considerably owing to the
inferior quality of the paint employed, their condition was good
compared with the dado, the composition columns, the settees and other
accessories of the room. Dust, black, deep and ancient, had settled
among those gilded lilies and plaster cupids; part of the work had
fallen away, exposing the supporting wires, and part was grievously
cracked. It may be because plaster cracks more irregularly than marble,
but whatever the reason a noseless plaster Muse, however elegant
originally, cannot reassert her loveliness like an antique torso or the
armless Aphrodite.
Moreover, the spider, ubiquitous and remorseless, had woven his
octagonal mesh in every crevice of the wall, and, more shamelessly
still, among the pendants of the great glass chandelier, wherein were
still sticking grisly and darkened stumps of candle, the same that had
been lit at the requiem of the last King of Alsander twenty years ago.
Since then a plain lamp (so portable and so much easier to light) had
been deemed sufficient for the service of the Court.
Perhaps the most pitiable objects in the room were the two or three
sofas that still remained, their gilt tarnished, their tapestries y
mouldy and eaten by the moth. But the hall contained another seat of a
far different aspect, impervious to such decay. Beneath the great rose
window it stood, at the upper end of the room, strangely out of place, a
cold and massive work, the ancient throne of the Kradendas. It was
fronted by wide steps, flanked by grotesque yet grand lions, and wrought
of granite rock. And if this rude and barbaric throne was anomalous in
so artistic a room, still more vivid was the contrast between the
majesty of its structure and the majesty of him who sat thereon.
For there sat the imbecile Andrea, with watery grey eyes, with hair and
hands unkempt, arrayed in the stifling drapery of his state robes. He
was a young man, but he seemed to have been alive five hundred years.
His features parodied the portraits of his ancestors. With the heavy
iron crown of Alsander on his head, and a great silver sceptre in his
hands, he sat immobile; only his mumbling lips seemed to address a
phantom and imaginary Court.