THE FALL OF TURBO.
"The blinded boy, that shootes so trim,
From heaven downe did hie;
He drew a dart and shot at him,
In place where he did lye."
Kophetua may have been in many respects a weak man, but he was not a man
to sit down tamely under the affront which the beggars had put upon him.
As he told General Dolabella, it had been his intention to summon the
head-quarter staff that very afternoon in order to concert measures for
the forcible punishment of his treasonable subjects. In the course of
the morning, however, his ardour had a little cooled. His sleep had
removed his excitement, and the more he contemplated his adventure, the
more ashamed he was of it, and he made up his mind to defer broaching
the subject for a few days.
Not that he abandoned his determination to cleanse his Augean stables.
It was only that he was resolved to let no one know of his adventure. He
feared that the display of a sudden anxiety to consider the question
could only lead to unpleasant inquiries and surmises. He did not
therefore summon the staff. He made up his mind it would be better to
approach the subject as an ordinary question of the interior, and give
notice that the condition of the Liberties of St. Lazarus would be
considered at the next monthly council, which would be held in about ten
days' time in ordinary course.
But even this plain way was not without its embarrassment, and it was a
particularly painful one for Kophetua. In a word, the obstacle was
Turbo. Turbo was Chancellor, and, as Chancellor, was President of the
Council. It was through him that all summonses and notices had to go. If
the King wished to have the Liberties of St. Lazarus placed upon the
orders of the day, it was Turbo whom he must tell to do it, and Turbo
was the very last person in the world that he wanted to address on the
subject. So acutely did he feel the difficulty of his position, and so
carefully did Turbo avoid him, that two days had passed since Penelophon
was installed in Mlle de Tricotrin's service before the question was
mentioned between them. When the dreaded interview did take place, it
was in no way due to Kophetua's resolution.
It was now the third day since his adventure, and the last on which
notices of business were usually sent to the Council. Kophetua was in no
pleasant frame of mind, for he knew that Turbo would come that very
morning for instructions as to the orders of the day. In vain he tried
to forget his trouble. In vain he adopted his usual expedient, which,
till recently, had been so successful with him. He deliberately sat and
tried to conjure up the prettiest face he knew. Of course it was Mlle de
Tricotrin's. It was a pleasant amusement to picture before his eyes her
lovely form and face, with its ripe beauty, the glowing carnation that
mantled so soft and pure in her rounded cheeks like life made visible,
the rich purple that gleamed like a gem under the long dark eyelashes,
the tempting lips that seemed made as a playground for kisses, and the
tangled setting of gold and bronze that softened and enriched the whole.
Yes, it was a sport pleasant enough to make a man forget the ugliest
things. Many times in the last two days had Kophetua set himself to it,
but it brought him little comfort. The pretty phantom would no longer
come at his light call. It wanted a serious effort of will to conjure
it, and then when he knew it had risen, and he set himself to enjoy a
quiet contemplation of it, lo! it was changed, and in its place stood a
spectre, wan and pale and of delicate mould, with a robe of thick dark
hair, and eyes darker still. Sometimes it was foul and ragged, and
sometimes it was like a corpse, but always it had the same trusting
dog-like look he knew so well, and always with a sense of strange
distress he exorcised it. It was the spirit of the woman who had risked
her life for his, of the woman whom he had saved from a horrible death.
It was the ghost of his better self that was haunting him in the shape
of that lowly child of nature. It would never do to think of it so. It
must be crushed and smothered and forgotten. So each time it rose he
cried his _Apagé_ against it, and fell to his trouble again. It was thus
he was sitting now, when Turbo was announced for his usual audience.
"I am merely here with the Council summonses," said Turbo carelessly,
after he had been admitted and had made his formal civilities. "I
presume your majesty has nothing to put on the orders of the day?"
"Yes, Chancellor, I have," answered the King, as carelessly as he could.
"There is a matter of importance which I have for some time wished to
consider, and which cannot be deferred much longer with safety to the
state."
"Indeed!" said the Chancellor, with affected surprise. "I was not aware
of anything so serious and sudden."
"It is not sudden," replied the King, with some sharpness, "I have told
you that. It is a matter that has been long in my mind, and in every one
else's, but no one has had the courage to speak the first word. Sit
down, and be at the pains of writing, while I dictate the form of my
notice."
"Shall I bring my papers to this end of the room?" asked the Chancellor
maliciously.
"No," cried the King in great vexation, "I will go to my usual place."
He had hardly been aware of it, but now he was highly annoyed to find
that instead of taking his chair before the founder's hearth, he had
been sitting at the other end of the library under the picture of the
King and the Beggar-Maid, and all he could do to conceal his annoyance
was to dictate his notice with unusual severity as follows:--
"HIS MAJESTY.--To call attention to the growing power and lawlessness of
the beggars within the Liberties of St. Lazarus, and to lay certain
considerations before the Council for the necessity of immediate steps
being taken in regard thereto."
The Chancellor wrote as he was told, placed the order in his portfolio
without a word, and then stood up waiting to be dismissed. Kophetua
looked at his snarling face for a moment, as though to detect what was
passing there, and then, turning on his heel with a shrug, waved
dismissal to his Minister. Turbo went straight to the door in silence,
but before he reached it the King's voice stopped him.
"Turbo!" said he frankly, "stay! What ridiculous farce is this we are
playing?"
It was always an understood signal between them, that when the King
called the Chancellor by his name they were to be on their old footing
of governor and pupil. It was no longer a monarch who spoke to his
Minister, but two old friends who chatted together. So Turbo limped back
and sat down carelessly by the hearth.
"I really cannot tell," he answered coolly; "I was taking my cue from
you."
"Let us understand one another," said Kophetua. "Do you mean to allow a
silly freak, in which we were both engaged, to sever our lifelong
friendship?"
"That depends upon what you intend to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you intend to give me back the girl you stole from me?"
"Certainly not," replied the King, with great decision.
"Then," said the Chancellor calmly, as he rose from his seat, "I am
afraid the silly freak will have the effect you were contemplating."
"Sit down, Turbo. This is absurd. What can you want with the child?"
"No matter. I want her."
"It is impossible. I have passed my word to protect her; and, besides, I
do not believe you want her."
"I am in love with her," said Turbo, as coldly as though he were made of
stone.
"My dear Turbo," answered the King, "pray be serious while we discuss
this matter."
"I am serious. I tell you I love her."
"But don't you see it is impossible for me to believe you after all you
have taught me of your philosophy of women!"
"It is because you have not learned your lesson that you cannot believe
I may love. You have not understood what I taught you. You can chatter
the words finely enough, but you have never conceived the spirit."
"And may it not be the teacher who was at fault?"
"No! I have told you plainly enough, but you are too soft and weak to
hold the truth. Still I will tell you again what my woman-philosophy is.
It is simply this: they have no resistance, no solid principles. Their
natural understanding is as a pool of water lying in a shallow bed,
beyond which no conviction can sink. A woman's moral ideas are but
bubbles that float on the surface of her unstable soul, and burst into
impalpable spray whenever they come in contact with the little they meet
that is firm and fixed. For women are all and utterly unstable, except
where they have shut in their souls with the stony rocks of self-love
and personal interest. These are things which are solid enough in the
daughters of Eve; it is against these that the empty bubbles of their
morality are burst and dissipated."
"But you have told me this many times," interrupted the King. "I cannot
see how it explains the paradox you want me to believe: it is only the
conceit of Diderot you quote again."
"I know," pursued the Chancellor, "it is the conceit of Diderot; and
Diderot was right, except that he pitied where he should only have
despised. And he was right when he said that, though outwardly more
civilised than ourselves, women have yet remained the true savages. It
is they who have kept the passions and instincts of the beasts. We have
changed them. They have only covered them over with civilisation. That
is why Diderot called the deceivers 'fair as the seraphin of Klopstock,
terrible as the fiends of Milton.' It was a wise saying, yet he could
not see it was the poison of civilisation that transformed the seraphin
into fiends. When did I ever say a word against the material part of
women? It was their minds I bade you know and shun. Find me a woman
where the seraphic matter is unpoisoned with the spirit of Eve, and why
should I not love her? Such a one, I tell you, is the girl you stole.
She is the pure clay, fresh from the hand of the potter. She is not
smeared with the smooth and glittering glaze; she is not stained with
the enticing colours; Art the arch-liar has not found her out to make
her as fair and false as the rest. She is foul and ragged and ignorant.
She knows no art to entice. She has no skill to deceive, and I love her
for her foulness and her rags and her stupidity, and know her for a
lump of the pure seraphic clay."
"I hear what you say," said the King thoughtfully; "but I cannot
understand. It is all wild talk, empty philosophy. This cannot make a
man love."
"You _will_ not understand!" cried Turbo, with sudden warmth. "That is
it; you will not listen, because you know it is this that makes a man
love. You know it, because you love her yourself!"
"Turbo," answered Kophetua hotly, "what folly is this? You forget
yourself."
"Perhaps," cried Turbo, rising from his chair and speaking with
ever-increasing vehemence. "But it is better to understand each other
now. I say you love her. You and I have talked for years like fools on
all this. We thought as one man, and thought we were wise and strong in
our unity. But now we have both seen this girl--curse the fate that
brought you to her--we have seen her, and we know we have been blind
fools that could not tell the gold from the dross. She has come to us,
and we both love her. You and I, I say, we both love her, but it is I
that will have her! Do you hear? It is I, I that will have our love,
though you stole her. Were you twice a king I will have her, though I
tear her from your very arms."
His ghastly scars grew more livid in his anger, and his pitted face
turned pale with rage. He seemed as one possessed, and sank in helpless
fury at the end of his insane outburst, as though exhausted with the
prolonged struggle to control himself. Kophetua turned from him and
began to pace the room. Turbo had gone too far. He had been insolent,
and the King's pride was kindled into anger. Yet Kophetua would not
speak till he was cool enough to control his words.
For, strange as it may seem, he loved this man--in the same way,
perhaps, as a man will love his cross-grained ugly cur that snarls and
snaps at every one but his master. So he paced the long room to cool his
anger and try and understand what his old governor's madness meant. Had
he known his whole story, the task might have been easier. Had he known
how that passionate nature had been chained down in long imprisonment,
he might have wondered less to see it burst its bonds. But he knew not
what passion could be in a man like Turbo. Its durance had been long and
hard, and now the time was at hand when it must die, worn out with age
and suffering. Yet even as the death throes were upon it, it had blazed
up in one last ungovernable fit, and Kophetua, to his wonder, saw the
man of ice burning like a furnace. At the last moment, when the struggle
was so near its end, the strong man's strength had failed him. He was
overwhelmed, as it were, and swept resistlessly onward by the gathering
flood he had so long dammed up.
But Kophetua could understand nothing of this as he paced the dark oak
floor, and the more he thought of the Chancellor's threats and
insolence, the less able he felt to continue the conversation. It was
impossible to forgive his insinuations about Penelophon. So at last all
Kophetua could do was to control himself sufficiently to inform the
Chancellor in his coldest official tone that he should not require his
further attendance that day.
For Kophetua the Chancellor's departure did little to clear the air. The
storm within him continued to growl and mutter. He felt himself a
martyr, or if he ceased for a moment to think that, it was only to call
himself a fool, and that was worse. The other view of the case was
preferable. He certainly was a martyr. He had made one honest effort to
escape from the banalities that were freezing his soul, and do something
worthy of his name. The only result so far was that he had dangerously
entangled himself with a siren who had been thrust in his way for that
very purpose; he had allowed his name to be connected with a beggar-girl
in a way that would have been still more annoying were it not so
ridiculous; and, finally, on the eve of a fierce political struggle to
which the same siren was sure to give rise, he had managed to quarrel
with all three of the party leaders, including his best friend, and the
only relation he had in the world. It is hardly to be wondered at under
the circumstances that he found himself constantly recurring to thoughts
which had often framed themselves before in the course of his reading in
political philosophy. They were to the effect that kings were a mistake,
and even a crime, and that his plain duty after all was to form a
republic and abdicate.