Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The Napoleon of Notting Hill
Scanned by Anton Franciszak Bryl
TO HILAIRE BELLOC
For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree; You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still, I saw a moon that was the town’s, The largest lamp on Campden Hill.
Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home The big blue cap that always fits, And so it is (be calm; they come To goal at last, my wandering wits), So is it with the heroic thing; This shall not end for the world’s end And though the sullen engines swing, Be you not much afraid, my friend.
This did not end by Nelson’s urn Where an immortal England sits— Nor where your tall young men in turn Drank death like wine at Austerlitz. And when the pedants bade us mark What cold mechanic happenings Must come; our souls said in the dark, “Belike; but there are likelier things.”
Likelier across these flats afar These sulky levels smooth and free The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare Slaughter below and smoke above, And death and hate and hell declare That men have found a thing to love.
Far from your sunny uplands set I saw the dream; the streets I trod The lit straight streets shot out and met The starry streets that point to God. This legend of an epic hour A child I dreamed, and dream it still, Under the great grey water-tower That strikes the stars on Campden Hill
G. K. C.
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE ART OF PROPHECY
THE human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, “Keep to-morrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.
But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the Prophet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. The reason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man did something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the State. And all these clever men were at work giving accounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all quite keen-sighted and ruthless, and all quite different. And it seemed that the good old game of hoodwinking your ancestors could not really be managed this time, because the ancestors neglected meat and sleep and practical politics, so that they might meditate day and night on what their descendants would be likely to do.
But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work was this. They took something or other that was certainly going on in their time, and then said that it would go on more and more until something extraordinary happened. And very often they added that in some odd place that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it showed the signs of the times.
Thus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G. Wells and others, who thought that science would take charge of the future; and just as the motor-car was quicker than the coach, so some lovely thing would be quicker than the motorcar; and so on for ever. And there arose from their ashes Dr. Quilp, who said that a man could be sent on his machine so fast round the world that he could keep up a long chatty conversation in some old-world village by saying a word of a sentence each time he came round. And it was said that the experiment had been tried on an apoplectic old major, who was sent round the world so fast that there seemed to be (to the inhabitants of some other star) a continuous band round the earth of white whiskers, red complexion and tweeds…a thing like the ring of Saturn.
Then there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward Carpenter, who thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and live simply and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followed by James Pickie, D.D. (of Pocahontas College), who said that men were immensely improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and continuously, alter the manner of cows. And he said that he had, with the most encouraging results, turned city men out on all fours in a field covered with veal cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed (“shedding,” as he called it finely, “the green blood of the silent animals”), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called “Why should Salt suffer?” and there was more trouble.
And on the other hand, some people were predicting that the lines of kinship would become narrower and sterner. There was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who thought that the one thing of the future was the British Empire, and that there would be a gulf between those who were of the Empire and those who were not, between the Chinaman in Hong-Kong and the Chinaman outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar and the Spaniard off it, similar to the gulf between man and the lower animals. And in the same way his impetuous friend, Dr. Zoppi (“the Paul of Anglo-Saxonism”), carried it yet further, and held that, as a result of this view, cannibalism should be held to mean eating a member of the Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, who should, he said, be killed without needless pain. His horror at the idea of eating a man in British Guiana showed how they misunderstood his stoicism who thought him devoid of feeling. He was, however, in a hard position; as it was said that he had attempted the experiment, and, living in London, had to subsist entirely on Italian organ-grinders. And his end was terrible, for just when he had begun, Sir Paul Swiller read his great paper at the Royal Society, proving that the savages were not only quite right in eating their enemies, but right on moral and hygienic grounds, since it was true that the qualities of the enemy, when eaten, passed into the eater. The notion that the nature of an Italian organ-man was irrevocably growing and burgeoning inside him was almost more than the kindly old professor could bear.
There was Mr. Benjamin Kidd, who said that the growing note of our race would be the care for and knowledge of the future. His idea was developed more powerfully by William Borker, who wrote that passage which every schoolboy knows by heart, about men in future ages weeping by the graves of their descendants, and tourists being shown over the scene of the historic battle which was to take place some centuries afterwards.
And Mr. Stead, too, was prominent, who thought that England would in the twentieth century be united to America; and his young lieutenant, Graham Podge, who included the states of France, Germany, and Russia in the American Union, the State of Russia being abbreviated to Ra.
There was Mr. Sidney Webb, also, who said that the future would see a continuously increasing order and neatness in the life of the people, and his poor friend Fipps, who went mad and ran about the country with an axe, hacking branches off the trees whenever there were not the same number on both sides.
All these clever men were prophesying with every variety of ingenuity what would happen soon, and they all did it in the same way, by taking something they saw ‘going strong,’ as the saying is, and carrying it as far as ever their imagination could stretch. This, they said, was the true and simple way of anticipating the future. “Just as,” said Dr. Pellkins, in a fine passage, “…just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law of the Inscrutable it will some day be larger than an elephant, just as we know, when we see weeds and dandelions growing more and more thickly in a garden, that they must, in spite of all our efforts, grow taller than the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so we know and reverently acknowledge, that when any power in human politics has shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go on until it reaches to the sky.”
And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet) in a quite unprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything without fulfilling some of their prophecies.
But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets, of peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especially women, a strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever of doubt. They could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. They still had something up their sleeve; they were still playing the game of Cheat the Prophet.
Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither and thither, crying, “What can it be? What can it be? What will London be like a century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Houses upside down…more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands…make feet flexible, don’t you know? Moon… motor-cars… no heads…” And so they swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely.
Then the people went and did what they liked. Let me no longer conceal the painful truth. The people had cheated the prophets of the twentieth century. When the curtain goes up on this story, eighty years after the present date, London is almost exactly like what it is now.
CHAPTER II
THE MAN IN GREEN
VERY few words are needed to explain why London, a hundred years hence, will be very like it is now, or rather, since I must slip into a prophetic past, why London, when my story opens, was very like it was in those enviable days when I was still alive.
The reason can be stated in one sentence. The people had absolutely lost faith in revolutions. All revolutions are doctrinal…such as the French one, or the one that introduced Christianity. For it stands to common sense that you cannot upset all existing things, customs, and compromises, unless you believe in something outside them, something positive and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost all belief in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And it said, “All theoretic changes have ended in blood and ennui. If we change, we must change slowly and safely, as the animals do. Nature’s revolutions are the only successful ones. There has been no conservative reaction in favour of tails.”
And some things did change. Things that were not much thought of dropped out of sight. Things that had not often happened did not happen at all. Thus, for instance, the actual physical force ruling the country, the soldiers and police, grew smaller and smaller, and at last vanished almost to a point. The people combined could have swept the few policemen away in ten minutes: they did not, because they did not believe it would do them the least good. They had lost faith in revolutions.
Democracy was dead; for no one minded the governing class governing. England was now practically a despotism, but not an hereditary one. Some one in the official class was made King. No one cared how; no one cared who. He was merely an universal secretary.
In this manner it happened that everything in London was very quiet. That vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon things happening as they have always happened, which is with all Londoners a mood, had become an assumed condition. There was really no reason for any man doing anything but the thing he had done the day before.
There was therefore no reason whatever why the three young men who had always walked up to their Government office together should not walk up to it together on this particular wintry and cloudy morning. Everything in that age had become mechanical, and Government clerks especially. All those clerks assembled regularly at their posts. Three of those clerks always walked into town together. All the neighbourhood knew them: two of them were tall and one short. And on this particular morning the short clerk was only a few seconds late to join the other two as they passed his gate: he could have overtaken them in three strides; he could have called after them easily. But he did not.
For some reason that will never be understood until all souls are judged (if they are ever judged; the idea was at this time classed with fetish worship) he did not join his two companions, but walked steadily behind them. The day was dull, their dress was dull, everything was dull; but in some odd impulse he walked through street after street, through district after district, looking at the backs of the two men, who would have swung round at the sound of his voice. Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.
So the short Government official looked at the coat-tails of the tall Government officials, and through street after street, and round corner after corner, saw only coat-tails, coat-tails, and again coat-tails…when, he did not in the least know why, something happened to his eyes.
Two black dragons were walking backwards in front of him. Two black dragons were looking at him with evil eyes. The dragons were walking backwards it was true, but they kept their eyes fixed on him none the less. The eyes which he saw were, in truth, only the two buttons at the back of a frock-coat: perhaps some traditional memory of their meaningless character gave this half-witted prominence to their gaze. The slit between the tails was the nose-line of the monster: whenever the tails flapped in the winter wind the dragons licked their lips. It was only a momentary fancy, but the small clerk found it imbedded in his soul ever afterwards. He never could again think of men in frock-coats except as dragons walking backwards. He explained afterwards, quite tactfully and nicely, to his two official friends, that while feeling an inexpressible regard for each of them he could not seriously regard the face of either of them as anything but a kind of tail. It was, he admitted, a handsome tail…a tail elevated in the air. But if, he said, any true friend of theirs wished to see their faces, to look into the eyes of their soul, that friend must be allowed to walk reverently round behind them, so as to see them from the rear. There he would see the two black dragons with the blind eyes.
But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles…they changed the universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know…that adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song. He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the four dead eyes glaring at him he looked round and realized the strange dead day.
The morning was wintry and dim, not misty, but darkened with that shadow of cloud or snow which steeps everything in a green or copper twilight. The light there is on such a day seems not so much to come from the clear heavens as to be a phosphorescence clinging to the shapes themselves. The load of heaven and the clouds is like a load of waters, and the men move like fishes, feeling that they are on the floor of a sea. Everything in a London street completes the fantasy; the carriages and cabs themselves resemble deep-sea creatures with eyes of flame. He had been startled at first to meet two dragons. Now he found he was among deep-sea dragons possessing the deep sea.
The two young men in front were like the small young man himself, well-dressed. The lines of their frock-coats and silk hats had that luxuriant severity which makes the modern fop, hideous as he is, a favourite exercise of the modern draughtsman; that element which Mr. Max Beerbohm has admirably expressed in speaking of “certain congruities of dark cloth and the rigid perfection of linen.”
They walked with the gait of an affected snail, and they spoke at the longest intervals, dropping a sentence at about every sixth lamp-post.
They crawled on past the lamp-posts; their mien was so immovable that a fanciful description might almost say, that the lamp-posts crawled past the men, as in a dream. Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said:
“I want to get my hair cut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere where they cut your hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but it keeps on growing again.”
One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist.
“Why, here is a little place,” cried the small man, with a sort of imbecile cheerfulness, as the bright bulging window of a fashionable toilet-saloon glowed abruptly out of the foggy twilight. “Do you know, I often find hairdressers when I walk about London. I’ll lunch with you at Cicconani’s. You know, I’m awfully fond of hairdressers’ shops. They’re miles better than those nasty butchers’.” And he disappeared into the doorway.
The man called James continued to gaze after him, a monocle screwed into his eye.
“What the devil do you make of that fellow?” he asked his companion, a pale young man with a high nose.
The pale young man reflected conscientiously for some minutes, and then said:
“Had a knock on his head when he was a kid, I should think.”
“No, I don’t think it’s that,” replied the Honourable James Barker. “I’ve sometimes fancied he was a sort of artist, Lambert.”
“Bosh!” cried Mr. Lambert, briefly.
“I admit I can’t make him out,” resumed Barker, abstractedly; “he never opens his mouth without saying something so indescribably half-witted that to call him a fool seems the very feeblest attempt at characterization. But there’s another thing about him that’s rather funny. Do you know that he has the one collection of Japanese lacquer in Europe? Have you ever seen his books? All Greek poets and mediaeval French and that sort of thing. Have you ever been in his rooms? It’s like being inside an amethyst. And he moves about in all that and talks like…like a turnip.”
“Well, damn all books. Your blue books as well,” said the ingenuous Mr. Lambert, with a friendly simplicity. “You ought to understand such things. What do you make of him?”
“He’s beyond me,” returned Barker. “But if you asked me for my opinion, I should say he was a man with a taste for nonsense, as they call it…artistic fooling, and all that kind of thing. And I seriously believe that he has talked nonsense so much that he has half bewildered his own mind and doesn’t know the difference between sanity and insanity. He has gone round the mental world, so to speak, and found the place where the East and the West are one, and extreme idiocy is as good as sense. But I can’t explain these psychological games.”
“You can’t explain them to me,” replied Mr. Wilfrid Lambert, with candour.
As they passed up the long streets towards their restaurant the copper twilight cleared slowly to a pale yellow, and by the time they reached it they stood discernible in a tolerable winter daylight. The Honourable James Barker, one of the most powerful officials in the English Government (by this time a rigidly official one), was a lean and elegant young man, with a blank handsome face and bleak blue eyes. He had a great amount of intellectual capacity, of that peculiar kind which raises a man from throne to throne and lets him die loaded with honours without having either amused or enlightened the mind of a single man. Wilfrid Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared to impoverish the rest of his face, had also contributed little to the enlargement of the human spirit, but he had the honourable excuse of being a fool.
Lambert would have been called a silly man; Barker, with all his cleverness, might have been called a stupid man. But mere silliness and stupidity sank into insignificance in the presence of the awful and mysterious treasures of foolishness apparently stored up in the small figure that stood waiting for them outside Cicconani’s. The little man, whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compounded of a baby and an owl. His round head, round eyes, seemed to have been designed by nature playfully with a pair of compasses. His flat dark hair and preposterously long frock-coat gave him something of the look of a child’s “Noah.” When he entered a room of strangers, they mistook him for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, until he spoke, when they perceived that a boy would have been more intelligent.
“I have been waiting quite a long time,” said Quin, mildly. “It’s awfully funny I should see you coming up the street at last.”
“Why?” asked Lambert, staring. “You told us to come here yourself.”
“My mother used to tell people to come to places,” said the sage.
They were about to turn into the restaurant with a resigned air, when their eyes were caught by something in the street. The weather, though cold and blank, was now quite clear, and across the dull brown of the wood pavement and between the dull grey terraces was moving something not to be seen for miles around…not to be seen perhaps at that time in England…a man dressed in bright colours. A small crowd hung on the man’s heels.
He was a tall stately man, clad in a military uniform of brilliant green, splashed with great silver facings. From the shoulder swung a short green furred cloak, somewhat like that of a Hussar, the lining of which gleamed every now and then with a kind of tawny crimson. His breast glittered with medals; round his neck was the red ribbon and star of some foreign order; and a long straight sword, with a blazing hilt, trailed and clattered along the pavement. At this time the pacific and utilitarian development of Europe had relegated all such customs to the Museums. The only remaining force, the small but well-organized police, were attired in a sombre and hygienic manner. But even those who remembered the last Life Guards and Lancers who disappeared in 1912 must have known at a glance that this was not, and never had been, an English uniform; and this conviction would have been heightened by the yellow aquiline face, like Dante carved in bronze, which rose, crowned with white hair, out of the green military collar, a keen and distinguished, but not an English face.
The magnificence with which the green-clad gentleman walked down the centre of the road would be something difficult to express in human language. For it was an ingrained simplicity and arrogance, something in the mere carriage of the head and body, which made ordinary moderns in the street stare after him; but it had comparatively little to do with actual conscious gestures or expression. In the matter of these merely temporary movements, the man appeared to be rather worried and inquisitive, but he was inquisitive with the inquisitiveness of a despot and worried as with the responsibilities of a god. The men who lounged and wondered behind him followed partly with an astonishment at his brilliant uniform, that is to say, partly because of that instinct which makes us all follow one who looks like a madman, but far more because of that instinct which makes all men follow (and worship) any one who chooses to behave like a king. He had to so sublime an extent that great quality of royalty…an almost imbecile unconsciousness of everybody, that people went after him as they do after kings…to see what would be the first thing or person he would take notice of. And all the time, as we have said, in spite of his quiet splendour, there was an air about him as if he were looking for somebody; an expression of inquiry.
Suddenly that expression of inquiry vanished, none could tell why, and was replaced by an expression of contentment. Amid the rapt attention of the mob of idlers, the magnificent green gentleman deflected himself from his direct course down the centre of the road and walked to one side of it. He came to a halt opposite to a large poster of Colman’s Mustard erected on a wooden hoarding. His spectators almost held their breath.
He took from a small pocket in his uniform a little penknife; with this he made a slash at the stretched paper. Completing the rest of the operation with his fingers, he tore off a strip or rag of paper, yellow in colour and wholly irregular in outline. Then for the first time the great being addressed his adoring onlookers:
“Can any one,” he said, with a pleasing foreign accent, “lend me a pin?”
Mr. Lambert, who happened to be nearest, and who carried innumerable pins for the purpose of attaching innumerable buttonholes, lent him one, which was received with extravagant but dignified bows, and hyperboles of thanks.
The gentleman in green, then, with every appearance of being gratified, and even puffed up, pinned the piece of yellow paper to the green silk and silver-lace adornments of his breast. Then he turned his eyes round again, searching and unsatisfied.
“Anything else I can do, sir?” asked Lambert, with the absurd politeness of the Englishman when once embarrassed.
“Red,” said the stranger, vaguely, “red.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I beg yours also, Senor,” said the stranger, bowing. “I was wondering whether any of you had any red about you.”
“Any red about us?…well, really…no, I don’t think I have…I used to carry a red bandanna once, but…”
“Barker,” asked Auberon Quin, suddenly, “where’s your red cockatoo? Where’s your red cockatoo?”
“What do you mean?” asked Barker, desperately. “What cockatoo? You’ve never seen me with any cockatoo.”
“I know,” said Auberon, vaguely mollified. “Where’s it been all the time?”
Barker swung round, not without resentment.
“I am sorry, sir,” he said, shortly but civilly, “none of us seem to have anything red to lend you. But why, if one may ask…”
“I thank you, Senor, it is nothing. I can, since there is nothing else, fulfil my own requirements.”
And standing for a second of thought with the penknife in his hand, he stabbed his left palm. The blood fell with so full a stream that it struck the stones without dripping. The foreigner pulled out his handkerchief and tore a piece from it with his teeth. The rag was immediately soaked in scarlet.
“Since you are so generous, Senor,” he said, “another pin, perhaps.”
Lambert held one out, with eyes protruding like a frog’s.
The red linen was pinned beside the yellow paper, and the foreigner took off his hat.
“I have to thank you all, gentlemen,” he said; and wrapping the remainder of the handkerchief round his bleeding hand, he resumed his walk with an overwhelming stateliness.
While all the rest paused, in some disorder, little Mr. Auberon Quin ran after the stranger and stopped him, with hat in hand. Considerably to everybody’s astonishment, he addressed him in the purest Spanish:
“Senor,” he said in that language, “pardon a hospitality, perhaps indiscreet, towards one who appears to be a distinguished, but a solitary guest in London. Will you do me and my friends, with whom you have held some conversation, the honour of lunching with us at the adjoining restaurant?”
The man in the green uniform had turned a fiery colour of pleasure at the mere sound of his own language, and he accepted the invitation with that profusion of bows which so often shows, in the case of the Southern races, the falsehood of the notion that ceremony has nothing to do with feeling.
“Senor,” he said, “your language is my own; but all my love for my people shall not lead me to deny to yours the possession of so chivalrous an entertainer. Let me say that the tongue is Spanish but the heart English.” And he passed with the rest into Cicconani’s.
“Now, perhaps,” said Barker, over the fish and sherry, intensely polite, but burning with curiosity, “perhaps it would be rude of me to ask why you did that?”
“Did what, Senor?” asked the guest, who spoke English quite well, though in a manner indefinably American.
“Well,” said the Englishman, in some confusion, “I mean tore a strip off a hoarding and… er… cut yourself… and…”
“To tell you that, Senor,” answered the other, with a certain sad pride, “involves merely telling you who I am. I am Juan del Fuego, President of Nicaragua.”
The manner with which the President of Nicaragua leant back and drank his sherry showed that to him this explanation covered all the facts observed and a great deal more. Barker’s brow, however, was still a little clouded.
“And the yellow paper,” he began, with anxious friendliness, “and the red rag…”
“The yellow paper and the red rag,” said Fuego, with indescribable grandeur, “are the colours of Nicaragua.”
“But Nicaragua…” began Barker, with great hesitation, “Nicaragua is no longer a…”
“Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has been annexed like Jerusalem,” cried the old man, with amazing fire. “The Yankee and the German and the brute powers of modernity have trampled it with the hoofs of oxen. But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea.”
Auberon Quin suggested timidly, “A brilliant idea.”
“Yes,” said the foreigner, snatching at the word. “You are right, generous Englishman. An idea brilliant, a burning thought. Senor, you asked me why, in my desire to see the colours of my country, I snatched at paper and blood. Can you not understand the ancient sanctity of colours? The Church has her symbolic colours. And think of what colours mean to us…think of the position of one like myself, who can see nothing but those two colours, nothing but the red and the yellow. To me all shapes are equal, all common and noble things are in a democracy of combination. Wherever there is a field of marigolds and the red cloak of an old woman, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a field of poppies and a yellow patch of sand, there is Nicaragua, Wherever there is a lemon and a red sunset, there is my country. Wherever I see a red pillar-box and a yellow sunset, there my heart beats. Blood and a splash of mustard can be my heraldry. If there be yellow mud and red mud in the same ditch, it is better to me than white stars.”
“And if,” said Quin, with equal enthusiasm, “there should happen to be yellow wine and red wine at the same lunch, you could not confine yourself to sherry. Let me order some Burgundy, and complete, as it were, a sort of Nicaraguan heraldry in your inside.”
Barker was fiddling with his knife, and was evidently making up his mind to say something, with the intense nervousness of the amiable Englishman.
“I am to understand, then,” he said at last, with a cough, “that you, ahem, were the President of Nicaragua when it made its…er…one must, of course, agree…its quite heroic resistance to…er…”
The ex-President of Nicaragua waved his hand.
“You need not hesitate in speaking to me,” he said. “I am quite fully aware that the whole tendency of the world of to-day is against Nicaragua and against me. I shall not consider it any diminution of your evident courtesy if you say what you think of the misfortunes that have laid my republic in ruins.”
Barker looked immeasurably relieved and gratified.
“You are most generous, President,” he said, with some hesitation over the title, “and I will take advantage of your generosity to express the doubts which, I must confess, we moderns have about such things as…er…the Nicaraguan independence.”
“So your sympathies are,” said Del Fuego, quite calmly, “with the big nation which…”
“Pardon me, pardon me, President,” said Barker, warmly; “my sympathies are with no nation. You misunderstand, I think, the modern intellect. We do not disapprove of the fire and extravagance of such commonwealths as yours only to become more extravagant on a larger scale. We do not condemn Nicaragua because we think Britain ought to be more Nicaraguan. We do not discourage small nationalities because we wish large nationalities to have all their smallness, all their uniformity of outlook, all their exaggeration of spirit. If I differ with the greatest respect from your Nicaraguan enthusiasm, it is not because a nation or ten nations were against you; it is because civilization was against you. We moderns believe in a great cosmopolitan civilization, one which shall include all the talents of all the absorbed peoples…”
“The Senor will forgive me,” said the President. “May I ask the Senor how, under ordinary circumstances, he catches a wild horse?”
“I never catch a wild horse,” replied Barker, with dignity.
“Precisely,” said the other; “and there ends your absorption of the talents. That is what I complain of your cosmopolitanism. When you say you want all peoples to unite, you really mean that you want all peoples to unite to learn the tricks of your people. If the Bedouin Arab does not know how to read, some English missionary or schoolmaster must be sent to teach him to read, but no one ever says, ‘This schoolmaster does not know how to ride on a camel; let us pay a Bedouin to teach him.’ You say your civilization will include all talents. Will it? Do you really mean to say that at the moment when the Esquimaux has learnt to vote for a County Council, you will have learnt to spear a walrus? I recur to the example I gave. In Nicaragua we had a way of catching wild horses…by lassoing the fore-feet-which was supposed to be the best in South America. If you are going to include all the talents, go and do it. If not, permit me to say, what I have always said, that something went from the world when Nicaragua was civilized.”
“Something, perhaps,” replied Barker, “but that something a mere barbarian dexterity. I do not know that I could chip flints as well as a primeval man, but I know that civilization can make these knives which are better, and I trust to civilization.”
“You have good authority,” answered the Nicaraguan. “Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours?”
“I think you do not quite understand, President, what ours is,” answered Barker. “You judge it rather as if England was still a poor and pugnacious island; you have been long out of Europe. Many things have happened.”
“And what,” asked the other, “would you call the summary of those things?”
“The summary of those things,” answered Barker, with great animation, “is that we are rid of the superstitions, and in becoming so we have not merely become rid of the superstitions which have been most frequently and most enthusiastically so described. The superstition of big nationalities is bad, but the superstition of small nationalities is worse. The superstition of reverencing our own country is bad, but the superstition of reverencing other people’s countries is worse. It is so everywhere, and in a hundred ways. The superstition of monarchy is bad, and the superstition of aristocracy is bad, but the superstition of democracy is the worst of all.”
The old gentleman opened his eyes with some surprise.
“Are you, then,” he said, “no longer a democracy in England?”
Barker laughed.
“The situation invites paradox,” he said. “We are, in a sense, the purest democracy. We have become a despotism. Have you not noticed how continually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the decay of democracy. It is simply its fulfilment. Why take the trouble to number and register and enfranchise all the innumerable John Robinsons, when you can take one John Robinson with the same intellect or lack of intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? The old idealistic republicans used to found democracy on the idea that all men were equally intelligent. Believe me, the sane and enduring democracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Why should we not choose out of them one as much as another? All that we want for Government is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidly look over some petitions and sign some proclamations. To think what time was wasted in arguing about the House of Lords, Tories saying it ought to be preserved because it was clever, and Radicals saying it ought to be destroyed because it was stupid, and all the time no one saw that it was right because it was stupid, because that chance mob of ordinary men thrown there by accident of blood, were a great democratic protest against the Lower House, against the eternal insolence of the aristocracy of talents. We have established now in England, the thing towards which all systems have dimly groped, the dull popular despotism without illusions. We want one man at the head of our State, not because he is brilliant or virtuous, but because he is one man and not a chattering crowd. To avoid the possible chance of hereditary diseases or such things, we have abandoned hereditary monarchy. The King of England is chosen like a juryman upon an official rotation list. Beyond that the whole system is quietly despotic, and we have not found it raise a murmur.”
“Do you really mean,” asked the President, incredulously, “that you choose any ordinary man that comes to hand and make him despot…that you trust to the chance of some alphabetical list…”
“And why not?” cried Barker. “Did not half the historical nations trust to the chance of the eldest sons of eldest sons, and did not half of them get on tolerably well? To have a perfect system is impossible; to have a system is indispensable. All hereditary monarchies were a matter of luck: so are alphabetical monarchies. Can you find a deep philosophical meaning in the difference between the Stuarts and the Hanoverians? Believe me, I will undertake to find a deep philosophical meaning in the contrast between the dark tragedy of the A’s, and the solid success of the B’s.”
“And you risk it?” asked the other. “Though the man may be a tyrant or a cynic or a criminal?”
“We risk it,” answered Barker, with a perfect placidity. “Suppose he is a tyrant…he is still a check on a hundred tyrants. Suppose he is a cynic, it is to his interest to govern well. Suppose he is a criminal…by removing poverty and substituting power, we put a check on his criminality. In short, by substituting despotism we have put a total check on one criminal and a partial check on all the rest.”
The Nicaraguan old gentleman leaned over with a queer expression in his eyes.
“My church, sir,” he said, “has taught me to respect faith. I do not wish to speak with any disrespect of yours, however fantastic. But do you really mean that you will trust to the ordinary man, the man who may happen to come next, as a good despot?”
“I do,” said Barker, simply. “He may not be a good man. But he will be a good despot. For when he comes to a mere business routine of government he will endeavour to do ordinary justice. Do we not assume the same thing in a jury?”
The old President smiled.
“I don’t know,” he said, “that I have any particular objection in detail to your excellent scheme of Government. My only objection is a quite personal one. It is, that if I were asked whether I would belong to it, I should ask first of all, if I was not permitted, as an alternative, to be a toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot argue with the choice of the soul.”
“Of the soul,” said Barker, knitting his brows, “I cannot pretend to say anything, but speaking in the interests of the public…”
Mr. Auberon Quin rose suddenly to his feet.
“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “I will step out for a moment into the air.”
“I’m so sorry, Auberon,” said Lambert, good-naturedly; “do you feel bad?”
“Not bad exactly,” said Auberon, with self-restraint; “rather good, if anything. Strangely and richly good. The fact is I want to reflect a little on those beautiful words that have just been uttered. ‘Speaking,’ yes, that was the phrase, ‘speaking in the interests of the public.’ One cannot get the honey from such things without being alone for a little.”
“Is he really off his chump, do you think?” asked Lambert.
The old President looked after him with queerly vigilant eyes.
“He is a man, I think,” he said, “who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man.”
Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some macaroni to his mouth.
“Dangerous!” he said. “You don’t know little Quin, sir!”
“Every man is dangerous,” said the old man, without moving, “who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself.”
And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowing profoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense and sombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly in lodgings in Soho.
… . .
Drowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little figure shaking and quaking, with what might at first sight have seemed terror or ague; but which was really that strange malady, a lonely laughter. He was repeating over and over to himself with a rich accent “But speaking in the interests of the public…”
CHAPTER III
“IN a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea,” said Auberon Quin, “there was a Nonconformist minister who had never been to Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strange look in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for they heard that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearing patent leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be the minister at all. But in the dead man’s pocket there was a return ticket to Maidstone.”
There was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and Lambert went swinging on through the slushy grass of Kensington Gardens. Then Auberon resumed.
“That story,” he said reverently, “is the test of humour.”
They walked on further and faster, wading through higher grass as they began to climb a slope.
“I perceive,” continued Auberon, “that you have passed the test, and consider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing. Only coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The great anecdote is received in silence, like a benediction. You felt pretty benedicted, didn’t you, Barker?”
“I saw the point,” said Barker, somewhat loftily.
“Do you know,” said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, “I have lots of stories as good as that. Listen to this one.”
And he slightly cleared his throat.
“Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist. ‘There,’ people of wide experience would say, ‘there goes the sallowest bimetallist in Cheshire.’ Once this was said so that he overheard it: it was said by an actuary, under a sunset of mauve and grey. Polycarp turned upon him. ‘Sallow!’ he cried fiercely, ‘sallow! Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes.’ It was said that no actuary ever made game of Dr. Polycarp again.”
Barker nodded with a simple sagacity. Lambert only grunted.
“Here is another,” continued the insatiable Quin. “In a hollow of the grey-green hills of rainy Ireland, lived an old, old woman, whose uncle was always Cambridge at the Boat Race. But in her grey-green hollows, she knew nothing of this: she didn’t know that there was a Boat Race. Also she did not know that she had an uncle. She had heard of nobody at all, except of George the First, of whom she had heard (I know not why), and in whose historical memory she put her simple trust. And by and by, in God’s good time, it was discovered that this uncle of hers was not really her uncle, and they came and told her so. She smiled through her tears, and said only, ‘Virtue is its own reward.’ ”
Again there was a silence, and then Lambert said:
“It seems a bit mysterious.”
“Mysterious!” cried the other. “The true humour is mysterious. Do you not realize the chief incident of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?”
“And what’s that?” asked Lambert, shortly.
“It is very simple,” replied the other. “Hitherto it was the ruin of a joke that people did not see it. Now it is the sublime victory of a joke that people do not see it. Humour, my friends, is the one sanctity remaining to mankind. It is the one thing you are thoroughly afraid of. Look at that tree.”
His interlocutors looked vaguely towards a beech that leant out towards them from the ridge of the hill.
“If,” said Mr. Quin, “I were to say that you did not see the great truths of science exhibited by that tree, though they stared any man of intellect in the face, what would you think or say? You would merely regard me as a pedant with some unimportant theory about vegetable cells. If I were to say that you did not see in that tree the vile mismanagement of local politics, you would dismiss me as a Socialist crank with some particular fad about public parks. If I were to say that you were guilty of the supreme blasphemy of looking at that tree and not seeing in it a new religion, a special revelation of God, you would simply say I was a mystic, and think no more about me. But if…and he lifted a pontifical hand…if I say that you cannot see the humour of that tree, and that I see the humour of it…my God! you will roll about at my feet.”
He paused a moment, and then resumed.
“Yes; a sense of humour, a weird and delicate sense of humour, is the new religion of mankind! It is towards that men will strain themselves with the asceticism of saints. Exercises, spiritual exercises, will be set in it. It will be asked, ‘Can you see the humour of this iron railing?’ or ‘Can you see the humour of this field of corn? Can you see the humour of the stars? Can you see the humour of the sunsets?’ How often I have laughed myself to sleep over a violet sunset.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Barker, with an intelligent embarrassment.
“Let me tell you another story. How often it happens that the M.P.’s for Essex are less punctual than one would suppose. The least punctual Essex M.P., perhaps, was James Wilson, who said, in the very act of plucking a poppy…”
Lambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the ground in a defiant attitude.
“Auberon,” he said, “chuck it. I won’t stand it. It’s all bosh.”
Both men stared at him, for there was something very explosive about the words, as if they had been corked up painfully for a long time.
“You have,” began Quin, “no…”
“I don’t care a curse,” said Lambert, violently, “whether I have ‘a delicate sense of humour’ or not. I won’t stand it. It’s all a confounded fraud. There’s no joke in those infernal tales at all. You know there isn’t as well as I do.”
“Well,” replied Quin, slowly, “it is true that I, with my rather gradual mental processes, did not see any joke in them. But the finer sense of Barker perceived it.”
Barker turned a fierce red, but continued to stare at the horizon.
“You ass,” said Lambert; “why can’t you be like other people? Why can’t you say something really funny, or hold your tongue? The man who sits on his hat in a pantomime is a long sight funnier than you are.”
Quin regarded him steadily. They had reached the top of the ridge and the wind struck their faces.
“Lambert,” said Auberon, “you are a great and good man, though I’m hanged if you look it. You are more. You are a great revolutionist or deliverer of the world, and I look forward to seeing you carved in marble between Luther and Danton, if possible in your present attitude, the hat slightly on one side. I said as I came up the hill that the new humour was the last of the religions. You have made it the last of the superstitions. But let me give you a very serious warning. Be careful how you ask me to do anything outre, to imitate the man in the pantomime, and to sit on my hat. Because I am a man whose soul has been emptied of all pleasures but folly. And for twopence I’d do it.”
“Do it then,” said Lambert, swinging his stick impatiently. “It would be funnier than the bosh you and Barker talk.”
Quin, standing on the top of the hill, stretched his hand out towards the main avenue of Kensington Gardens.
“Two hundred yards away,” he said, “are all your fashionable acquaintances with nothing on earth to do but to stare at each other and at us. We are standing upon an elevation under the open sky, a peak as it were of fantasy, a Sinai of humour. We are in a great pulpit or platform, lit up with sunlight, and half London can see us. Be careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness which goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Lambert, contemptuously. “I only know I’d rather you stood on your silly head, than talked so much.”
“Auberon! for goodness’ sake…” cried Barker, springing forward; but he was too late. Faces from, all the benches and avenues were turned in their direction. Groups stopped and small crowds collected; and the sharp sunlight picked out the whole scene in blue, green and black, like a picture in a child’s toy-book. And on the top of the small hill Mr. Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness upon his head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air.
“For God’s sake, Quin, get up, and don’t be an idiot,” cried Barker, wringing his hands; “we shall have the whole town here.”
“Yes, get up, get up, man,” said Lambert, amused and annoyed. “I was only fooling; get up.”
Auberon did so with a bound, and flinging his hat higher than the trees, proceeded to hop about on one leg with a serious expression. Barker stamped wildly.
“Oh, let’s get home, Barker, and leave him,” said Lambert; “some of your proper and correct police will look after him. Here they come!”
Two grave-looking men in quiet uniforms came up the hill towards them. One held a paper in his hand.
“There he is, officer,” said Lambert, cheerfully; “we ain’t responsible for him.”
The officer looked at the capering Mr. Quin with a quiet eye.
“We have not come, gentlemen,” he said, “about what I think you are alluding to. We have come from head-quarters to announce the selection of His Majesty the King. It is the rule, inherited from the old regime, that the news should be brought to the new Sovereign immediately, wherever he is; so we have followed you across Kensington Gardens.”
Barker’s eyes were blazing in his pale face. He was consumed with ambition throughout his life. With a certain dull magnanimity of the intellect he had really believed in the chance method of selecting despots. But this sudden suggestion, that the selection might have fallen upon him, unnerved him with pleasure.
“Which of us,” he began, and the respectful official interrupted him.
“Not you, sir, I am sorry to say. If I may be permitted to say so, we know your services to the Government, and should be very thankful if it were. The choice has fallen…”
“God bless my soul!” said Lambert, jumping back two paces. “Not me. Don’t say I’m autocrat of all the Russias.”
“No, sir,” said the officer, with a slight cough and a glance towards Auberon, who was at that moment putting his head between his legs and making a noise like a cow; “the gentleman whom we have to congratulate seems at the moment…er…er…occupied.”
“Not Quin!” shrieked Barker, rushing up to him; “it can’t be. Auberon, for God’s sake pull yourself together. You’ve been made King!”
With his head still upside down between his legs, Mr. Quin answered modestly:
“I am not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the great men who have previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. Perhaps the only peculiarity that I can claim is that I am probably the first monarch that ever spoke out his soul to the people of England with his head and body in this position. This may in some sense give me, to quote a poem that I wrote in my youth:
“A nobler office on the earth Than valour, power of brain, or birth Could give the warrior kings of old. The intellect clarified by this posture…”
Lambert and Barker made a kind of rush at him.
“Don’t you understand?” cried Lambert. “It’s not a joke. They’ve really made you King. By gosh! they must have rum taste.”
“The great Bishops of the Middle Ages,” said Quin, kicking his legs in the air, as he was dragged, up more or less upside down, “were in the habit of refusing the honour of election three times and then accepting it. A mere matter of detail separates me from those great men. I will accept the post three times and refuse it afterwards. Oh! I will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet of humour.”
By this time he had been landed the right way up, and the two men were still trying in vain to impress him with the gravity of the situation.
“Did you not tell me, Wilfrid Lambert,” he said, “that I should be of more public value if I adopted a more popular form of humour? And when should a popular form of humour be more firmly riveted upon me than now, when I have become the darling of a whole people? Officer,” he continued, addressing the startled messenger, “are there no ceremonies to celebrate my entry into the city?”
“Ceremonies,” began the official, with embarrassment, “have been more or less neglected for some little time, and…”
Auberon Quin began gradually to take off his coat.
“All ceremony,” he said, “consists in the reversal of the obvious. Thus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women. Kindly help me on with this coat.” And he held it out.
“But, your Majesty,” said the officer, after a moment’s bewilderment and manipulation, “you’re putting it on with the tails in front.”
“The reversal of the obvious,” said the King, calmly, “is as near as we can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. Lead on.”
The rest of that afternoon and evening was to Barker and Lambert a nightmare, which they could not properly realize or recall. The King, with his coat on the wrong way, went towards the streets that were awaiting him, and the old Kensington Palace which was the Royal residence. As he passed small groups of men, the groups turned into crowds, and gave forth sounds which seemed strange in welcoming an autocrat. Barker walked behind, his brain reeling, and, as the crowds grew thicker and thicker, the sounds became more and more unusual. And when he had reached the great market-place opposite the church, Barker knew that he had reached it, though he was roods behind, because a cry went up such as had never before greeted any of the kings of the earth.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
THE CHARTER OF THE CITIES
LAMBERT was standing bewildered outside the door of the King’s apartments amid the scurry of astonishment and ridicule. He was just passing out into the street, in a dazed manner, when James Barker dashed by him.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To stop all this foolery, of course,” replied Barker; and he disappeared into the room.
He entered it headlong, slamming the door, and slapping his incomparable silk hat on the table. His mouth opened, but before he could speak, the King said:
“Your hat, if you please.”
Fidgeting with his fingers, and scarcely knowing what he was doing, the young politician held it out.
The King placed it on his own chair, and sat on it.
“A quaint old custom,” he explained, smiling above the ruins. “When the King receives the representatives of the House of Barker, the hat of the latter is immediately destroyed in this manner. It represents the absolute finality of the act of homage expressed in the removal of it. It declares that never until that hat shall once more appear upon your head (a contingency which I firmly believe to be remote) shall the House of Barker rebel against the Crown of England.”
Barker stood with clenched fist, and shaking lip.
“Your jokes,” he began, “and my property…” and then exploded with an oath, and stopped again.
“Continue, continue,” said the King, waving his hands.
“What does it all mean?” cried the other with a gesture of passionate rationality. “Are you mad?”
“Not in the least,” replied the King, pleasantly. “Madmen are always serious; they go mad from lack of humour. You are looking serious yourself, James.”
“Why can’t you keep it to your own private life?” expostulated the other. “You’ve got plenty of money, and plenty of houses now to play the fool in, but in the interests of the public…”
“Epigrammatic,” said the King, shaking his finger sadly at him. “None of your daring scintillations here. As to why I don’t do it in private, I rather fail to understand your question. The answer is of comparative limpidity. I don’t do it in private, because it is funnier to do it in public. You appear to think that it would be amusing to be dignified in the banquet hall and in the street, and at my own fireside (I could procure a fireside) to keep the company in a roar. But that is what every one does. Every one is grave in public, and funny in private. My sense of humour suggests the reversal of this; it suggests that one should be funny in public, and solemn in private. I desire to make the State functions, parliaments, coronations, and so on, one roaring old-fashioned pantomime. But, on the other hand, I shut myself up alone in a small store-room for two hours a day, where I am so dignified that I come out quite ill.”
By this time Barker was walking up and down the room, his frock-coat flapping like the black wings of a bird.
“Well, you will ruin the country, that’s all,” he said shortly.
“It seems to me,” said Auberon, “that the tradition of ten centuries is being broken, and the House of Barker is rebelling against the Crown of England. It would be with regret (for I admire your appearance) that I should be obliged forcibly to decorate your head with the remains of this hat, but…”
“What I can’t understand,” said Barker, flinging up his fingers with a feverish American movement, “is why you don’t care about anything else but your games.”
The King stopped sharply in the act of lifting the silken remnants, dropped them, and walked up to Barker, looking at him steadily.
“I made a kind of vow,” he said, “that I would not talk seriously, which always means answering silly questions. But the strong man will always be gentle with politicians.
“‘The shape my scornful looks deride Required a God to form;’
“if I may so theologically express myself. And for some reason I cannot in the least understand, I feel impelled to answer that question of yours, and to answer it as if there were really such a thing in the world as a serious subject. You ask me why I don’t care for anything else. Can you tell me, in the name of all the gods you don’t believe in, why I should care for anything else?”
“Don’t you realize common public necessities?” cried Barker. “Is it possible that a man of your intelligence does not know that it is every one’s interest…”
“Don’t you believe in Zoroaster? Is it possible that you neglect Mumbo-Jumbo?” returned the King, with startling animation. “Does a man of your intelligence come to me with these damned early Victorian ethics? If, on studying my features and manner, you detect any particular resemblance to the Prince Consort, I assure you you are mistaken. Did Herbert Spencer ever convince you…did he ever convince anybody…did he ever for one mad moment convince himself…that it must be to the interest of the individual to feel a public spirit? Do you believe that, if you rule your department badly, you stand any more chance, or one half of the chance, of being guillotined, than an angler stands, of being pulled into the river by a strong pike? Herbert Spencer refrained from theft for the same reason that he refrained from wearing feathers in his hair, because he was an English gentleman with different tastes. I am an English gentleman with different tastes. He liked philosophy. I like art. He liked writing ten books on the nature of human society. I like to see the Lord Chamberlain walking in front of me with a piece of paper pinned to his coat-tails. It is my humour. Are you answered? At any rate, I have said my last serious word today, and my last serious word I trust for the remainder of my life in this Paradise of Fools. The remainder of my conversation with you today, which I trust will be long and stimulating, I propose to conduct in a new language of my own by means of rapid and symbolic movements of the left leg.” And he began to pirouette slowly round the room with a preoccupied expression.
Barker ran round the room after him, bombarding him with demands and entreaties. But he received no response except in the new language. He came out banging the door again, and sick like a man coming on shore. As he strode along the streets he found himself suddenly opposite Cicconani’s restaurant, and for some reason there rose up before him the green fantastic figure of the Spanish General, standing, as he had seen him last, at the door with the words on his lips, “You cannot argue with the choice of the soul.”
The King came out from his dancing with the air of a man of business legitimately tired. He put on an overcoat, lit a cigar, and went out into the purple night.
“I will go,” he said, “and mingle with the people.”
He passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of Notting Hill, when suddenly he felt a hard object driven into his waistcoat. He paused, put up a single eye-glass, and beheld a boy with a wooden sword and a paper cocked hat, wearing that expression of awed satisfaction with which a child contemplates his work when he has hit some one very hard. The King gazed thoughtfully for some time at his assailant, and slowly took a note-book from his breast-pocket.
“I have a few notes,” he said, “for my dying speech;” and he turned over the leaves. “Dying speech for political assassination; ditto, if by former friend…h’m, h’m. Dying speech for death at hands of injured husband (repentant). Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quite sure which meets the present…”
“I’m the King of the Castle,” said the boy, truculently, and very pleased with nothing in particular.
The King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, like all people who are fond of the ridiculous.
“Infant,” he said. “I’m glad you are so stalwart a defender of your old inviolate Notting Hill. Look up nightly to that peak, my child, where it lifts itself among the stars so ancient, so lonely, so unutterably Notting. So long as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of Bayswater…”
The King stopped suddenly, and his eyes shone.
“Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps the noblest of all my conceptions. A revival of the arrogance of the old mediaeval cities applied to our glorious suburbs. Clapham with a city guard. Wimbledon with a city wall. Surbiton tolling a bell to raise its citizens. West Hampstead going into battle with its own banner. It shall be done. I, the King, have said it.” And, hastily presenting the boy with half-a-crown, remarking, “For the war-chest of Notting Hill,” he ran violently home at such a rate of speed that crowds followed him for miles. On reaching his study, he ordered a cup of coffee, and plunged into profound meditation upon the project. At length he called his favourite Equerry, Captain Bowler, for whom he had a deep affection, founded principally upon the shape of his whiskers.
“Bowler,” he said, “isn’t there some society of historical research, or something of which I am an honorary member?”
“Yes, sir,” said Captain Bowler, rubbing his nose, “you are a member of ’ The Encouragers of Egyptian Renaissance,’ and ’ The Teutonic Tombs Club,’ and ’ The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities,’ and…”
“That is admirable,” said the King. “The London Antiquities does my trick. Go to the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities and speak to their secretary, and their sub-secretary, and their president, and their vice-president, saying, ’ The King of England is proud, but the honorary member of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities is prouder than kings. I should like to tell you of certain discoveries I have made touching the neglected traditions of the London boroughs. The revelations may cause some excitement, stirring burning memories and touching old wounds in Shepherd’s Bush and Bayswater, in Pimlico and South Kensington. The King hesitates, but the honorary member is firm. I approach you invoking the vows of my initiation, the Sacred Seven Cats, the Poker of Perfection, and the Ordeal of the Indescribable Instant (forgive me if I mix you up with the Clan-na-Gael or some other club I belong to), and ask you to permit me to read a paper at your next meeting on the ’ Wars of the London Boroughs.’ Say all this to the Society, Bowler. Remember it very carefully, for it is most important, and I have forgotten it altogether, and send me another cup of coffee and some of the cigars that we keep for vulgar and successful people. I am going to write my paper.”
The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities met a month after in a corrugated iron hall on the outskirts of one of the southern suburbs of London. A large number of people had collected there under the coarse and flaring gas-jets when the King arrived, perspiring and genial. On taking off his great-coat, he was perceived to be in evening dress, wearing the Garter. His appearance at the small table, adorned only with a glass of water, was received with respectful cheering.
The chairman (Mr. Huggins) said that he was sure that they had all been pleased to listen to such distinguished lecturers as they had heard for some time past (hear, hear). Mr. Burton (hear, hear), Mr. Cambridge, Professor King (loud and continued cheers), our old friend Peter Jessop, Sir William White (loud laughter), and other eminent men, had done honour to their little venture (cheers). But there were other circumstances which lent a certain unique quality to the present occasion (hear, hear). So far as his recollection went, and in connection with the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities it went very far (loud cheers), he did not remember that any of their lecturers had borne the title of King. He would therefore call upon King Auberon briefly to address the meeting.
The King began by saying that this speech might be regarded as the first declaration of his new policy for the nation. “At this supreme hour of my life I feel that to no one but the members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities can I open my heart (cheers). If the world turns upon my policy, and the storms of popular hostility begin to rise (no, no), I feel that it is here, with my brave Recoverers around me, that I can best meet them, sword in hand” (loud cheers).
His Majesty then went on to explain that, now old age was creeping upon him, he proposed to devote his remaining strength to bringing about a keener sense of local patriotism in the various municipalities of London. How few of them knew the legends of their own boroughs! How many there were who had never heard of the true origin of the Wink of Wandsworth! What a large proportion of the younger generation in Chelsea neglected to perform the old Chelsea Chuff! Pimlico no longer pumped the Pimlies. Battersea had forgotten the name of Blick.
There was a short silence, and then a voice said “Shame.”
The King continued: “Being called, however unworthily, to this high estate, I have resolved that, so far as possible, this neglect shall cease. I desire no military glory. I lay claim to no constitutional equality with Justinian or Alfred. If I can go down to history as the man who saved from extinction a few old English customs, if our descendants can say it was through this man, humble as he was, that the Ten Turnips are still eaten in Fulham, and the Putney parish councillor still shaves one half of his head I shall look my great fathers reverently but not fearfully in the face when I go down to the last house of Kings.”
The King paused, visibly affected, but collecting himself, resumed once more.
“I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on the sublime origins of these legends. The very names of your boroughs bear witness to them. So long as Hammersmith is called Hammersmith, its people will live in the shadow of that primal hero, the Blacksmith, who led the democracy of the Broadway into battle till he drove the chivalry of Kensington before him and overthrew them at that place which in honour of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy is still called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail to remember that the very name of Kensington originated from the lips of their hero. For at the great banquet of reconciliation held after the war, when the disdainful oligarchs declined to join in the songs of the men of the Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popular character), the great Republican leader, with his rough humour, said the words which are written in gold upon his monument, ‘Little birds that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to sing.’ So that the Eastern Knights were called Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. But you also have great memories, O men of Kensington! You showed that you could sing, and sing great war-songs. Even after the dark day of Kensington Gore, history will not forget those three Knights who guarded your disordered retreat from Hyde Park (so called from your hiding there), those three Knights after whom Knightsbridge is named. Nor will it forget the day of your re-emergence, purged in the fire of calamity, cleansed of your oligarchic corruptions, when, sword in hand, you drove the Empire of Hammersmith back mile by mile, swept it past its own Broadway, and broke it at last in a battle so long and bloody that the birds of prey have left their name upon it. Men have called it, with austere irony, the Ravenscourt. I shall not, I trust, wound the patriotism of Bayswater, or the lonelier pride of Brompton, or that of any other historic township, by taking these two special examples. I select them, not because they are more glorious than the rest, but partly from personal association (I am myself descended from one of the three heroes of Knightsbridge), and partly from the consciousness that I am an amateur antiquarian and cannot presume to deal with times and places more remote and more mysterious. It is not for me to settle the question between two such men as Professor Hugg and Sir William Whisky as to whether Notting Hill means Nutting Hill (in allusion to the rich woods which no longer cover it), or whether it is a corruption of Nothing-ill, referring to its reputation among the ancients as an Earthly Paradise. When a Podkins and a Jossy confess themselves doubtful about the boundaries of West Kensington (said to have been traced in the blood of Oxen), I need not be ashamed to confess a similar doubt. I will ask you to excuse me from further history, and to assist me with your encouragement in dealing with the problem which faces us to-day. Is this ancient spirit of the London townships to die out? Are our omnibus conductors and policemen to lose altogether that light which we see so often in their eyes, the dreamy light of
“‘Old unhappy far-off things And battles long ago’
“to quote the words of a little-known poet who was a friend of my youth? I have resolved, as I have said, so far as possible, to preserve the eyes of policemen and omnibus conductors in their present dreamy state. For what is a state without dreams? And the remedy I propose is as follows:
“To-morrow morning at twenty-five minutes past ten, if Heaven spares my life, I purpose to issue a Proclamation. It has been the work of my life and is about half finished. With the assistance of a whisky and soda, I shall conclude the other half to-night, and my people will receive it to-morrow. All these boroughs where you were born, and hope to lay your bones, shall be reinstated in their ancient magnificence…Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, Clapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall immediately build a city wall with gates to be closed at sunset. Each shall have a city guard, armed to the teeth. Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms, and, if convenient, a gathering cry. I will not enter into the details now, my heart is too full. They will be found in the proclamation itself. You will all, however, be subject to enrolment in the local city guards, to be summoned together by a thing called the Tocsin, the meaning of which I am studying in my researches into history. Personally, I believe a tocsin to be some kind of highly paid official. If, therefore, any of you happen to have such a thing as a halberd in the house, I should advise you to practise with it in the garden.”
Here the King buried his face in his handkerchief and hurriedly left the platform, overcome by emotions.
The members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities rose in an indescribable state of vagueness. Some were purple with indignation; an intellectual few were purple with laughter; the great majority found their minds a blank. There remains a tradition that one pale face with burning blue eyes remained fixed upon the lecturer, and after the lecture a red-haired boy ran out of the room.
CHAPTER II
THE COUNCIL OF THE PROVOSTS
THE King got up early next morning and came down three steps at a time like a schoolboy. Having eaten his breakfast hurriedly, but with an appetite, he summoned one of the highest officials of the Palace, and presented him with a shilling. “Go and buy me,” he said, “a shilling paint-box, which you will get, unless the mists of time mislead me, in a shop at the corner of the second and dirtier street that leads out of Rochester Row. I have already requested the Master of the Buckhounds to provide me with cardboard. It seemed to me (I know not why) that it fell within his department.”
The King was happy all that morning with his cardboard and his paint-box. He was engaged in designing the uniforms and coats-of-arms for the various municipalities of London. They gave him deep and no inconsiderable thought. He felt the responsibility.
“I cannot think,” he said, “why people should think the names of places in the country more poetical than those in London. Shallow romanticists go away in trains and stop in places called Hugmy-in-the-Hole, or Bumps-on-the-Puddle. And all the time they could, if they liked, go and live at a place with the dim, divine name of St. John’s Wood. I have never been to St. John’s Wood. I dare not. I should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to come upon a blood-red cup and the beating of the wings of the Eagle. But all these things can be imagined by remaining reverently in the Harrow train.”
And he thoughtfully retouched his design for the head-dress of the halberdier of St. John’s Wood, a design in black and red, compounded of a pine tree and the plumage of an eagle. Then he turned to another card. “Let us think of milder matters,” he said. “Lavender Hill! Could any of your glebes and combes and all the rest of it produce so fragrant an idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in purple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men’s nostrils with a new breath of life…a purple hill of incense. It is true that upon my few excursions of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed to hit the precise spot. But it must be there; some poet called it by its name. There is at least warrant enough for the solemn purple plumes (following the botanical formation of lavender) which I have required people to wear in the neighbourhood of Clapham Junction. It is so everywhere, after all. I have never been actually to Southfields, but I suppose a scheme of lemons and olives represent their austral instincts. I have never visited Parson’s Green, or seen either the Green or the Parson, but surely the pale-green shovel-hats I have designed must be more or less in the spirit. I must work in the dark and let my instincts guide me. The great love I bear to my people will certainly save me from distressing their noble spirit, or violating their great traditions.”
As he was reflecting in this vein, the door was flung open, and an official announced Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert.
Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert were not particularly surprised to find the King sitting on the floor amid a litter of water-colour sketches. They were not particularly surprised because the last time they had called on him they had found him sitting on the floor, surrounded by a litter of children’s bricks, and the time before surrounded by a litter of wholly unsuccessful attempts to make paper darts. But the trend of the royal infant’s remarks, uttered from amid this infantile chaos, was not quite the same affair. For some time they let him babble on, conscious that his remarks meant nothing. And then a horrible thought began to steal over the mind of James Barker. He began to think that the King’s remarks did not mean nothing.
“In God’s name, Auberon,” he suddenly volleyed out, startling the quiet hall, “you don’t mean that you are really going to have these city guards and city walls and things?”
“I am, indeed,” said the infant, in a quiet voice. “Why shouldn’t I have them? I have modelled them precisely on your political principles. Do you know what I’ve done, Barker? I’ve behaved like a true Barkerian. I’ve… but perhaps it won’t interest you, the account of my Barkerian conduct.”
“Oh, go on, go on,” cried Barker.
“The account of my Barkerian conduct,” said Auberon, calmly, “seems not only to interest, but to alarm you. Yet it is very simple. It merely consists in choosing all the provosts under any new scheme by the same principle by which you have caused the central despot to be appointed. Each provost, of each city, under my charter, is to be appointed by rotation. Sleep, therefore, my Barker, a rosy sleep.”
Barker’s wild eyes flared.
“But, in God’s name, don’t you see, Quin, that the thing is quite different? In the centre it doesn’t matter so much, just because the whole object of despotism is to get some sort of unity. But if any damned parish can go to any damned man…”
“I see your difficulty,” said King Auberon, calmly. “You feel that your talents may be neglected. Listen!” And he rose with immense magnificence. “I solemnly give to my liege subject, James Barker, my special and splendid favour, the right to override the obvious text of the Charter of the Cities, and to be, in his own right, Lord High Provost of South Kensington. And now, my dear James, you are all right. Good day.”
“But…” began Barker.
“The audience is at an end, Provost,” said the King, smiling.
How far his confidence was justified, it would require a somewhat complicated description to explain. “The Great Proclamation of the Charter of the Free Cities” appeared in due course that morning, and was posted by bill-stickers all over the front of the Palace, the King assisting them with animated directions, and standing in the middle of the road, with his head on one side, contemplating the result. It was also carried up and down the main thoroughfares by sandwichmen, and the King was, with difficulty, restrained from going out in that capacity himself, being, in fact, found by the Groom of the Stole and Captain Bowler, struggling between two boards. His excitement had positively to be quieted like that of a child.
The reception which the Charter of the Cities met at the hands of the public may mildly be described as mixed. In one sense it was popular enough. In many happy homes that remarkable legal document was read aloud on winter evenings amid uproarious appreciation, when everything had been learnt by heart from that quaint but immortal old classic, Mr. W. W. Jacobs. But when it was discovered that the King had every intention of seriously requiring the provisions to be carried out, of insisting that the grotesque cities, with their tocsins and city guards, should really come into existence, things were thrown into a far angrier confusion. Londoners had no particular objection to the King making a fool of himself, but they became indignant when it became evident that he wished to make fools of them; and protests began to come in.
The Lord High Provost of the Good and Valiant City of West Kensington wrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining that upon State occasions it would, of course, be his duty to observe what formalities the King thought proper, but that it was really awkward for a decent householder not to be allowed to go out and put a post-card in a pillar-box without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, with formal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High Provost desired to catch the post.
The Lord High Provost of North Kensington, who was a prosperous draper, wrote a curt business note, like a man complaining of a railway company, stating that definite inconvenience had been caused him by the presence of the halberdiers, whom he had to take with him everywhere. When attempting to catch an omnibus to the City, he had found that while room could have been found for himself, the halberdiers had a difficulty in getting into the vehicle-believe him, theirs faithfuly.
The Lord High Provost of Shepherd’s Bush said his wife did not like men hanging round the kitchen.
The King was always delighted to listen to these grievances, delivering lenient and kingly answers, but as he always insisted, as the absolute sine qua non, that verbal complaints should be presented to him with the fullest pomp of trumpets, plumes, and halberds, only a few resolute spirits were prepared to run the gauntlet of the little boys in the street.
Among these, however, was prominent the abrupt and business-like gentleman who ruled North Kensington. And he had before long, occasion to interview the King about a matter wider and even more urgent than the problem of the halberdiers and the omnibus. This was the greatest question which then and for long afterwards brought a stir to the blood and a flush to the cheek of all the speculative builders and house agents from Shepherd’s Bush to the Marble Arch, and from Westbourne Grove to High Street, Kensington. I refer to the great affair of the improvements in Notting Hill. The scheme was conducted chiefly by Mr. Buck, the abrupt North Kensington magnate, and by Mr. Wilson, the Provost of Bayswater. A great thoroughfare was to be driven through three boroughs, through West Kensington, North Kensington and Notting Hill, opening at one end into Hammersmith Broadway, and at the other into Westbourne Grove. The negotiations, buyings, sellings, bullying and bribing took ten years, and by the end of it Buck, who had conducted them almost single-handed, had proved himself a man of the strongest type of material energy and material diplomacy. And just as his splendid patience and more splendid impatience had finally brought him victory, when workmen were already demolishing houses and walls along the great line from Hammersmith, a sudden obstacle appeared that had neither been reckoned with nor dreamed of, a small and strange obstacle, which, like a speck of grit in a great machine, jarred the whole vast scheme and brought it to a standstill, and Mr. Buck, the draper, getting with great impatience into his robes of office and summoning with indescribable disgust his halberdiers, hurried over to speak to the King.
Ten years had not tired the King of his joke. There were still new faces to be seen looking out from the symbolic head-gears he had designed, gazing at him from amid the pastoral ribbons of Shepherd’s Bush or from under the sombre hoods of the Blackfriars Road. And the interview which was promised him with the Provost of North Kensington he anticipated with a particular pleasure, for “he never really enjoyed,” he said, “the full richness of the mediaeval garments unless the people compelled to wear them were very angry and businesslike.”
Mr. Buck was both. At the King’s command the door of the audience-chamber was thrown open and a herald appeared in the purple colours of Mr. Buck’s commonwealth emblazoned with the Great Eagle which the King had attributed to North Kensington, in vague reminiscence of Russia, for he always insisted on regarding North Kensington as some kind of semi-arctic neighbourhood. The herald announced that the Provost of that city desired audience of the King.
“From North Kensington?” said the King, rising graciously. “What news does he bring from that land of high hills and fair women? He is welcome.”
The herald advanced into the room, and was immediately followed by twelve guards clad in purple, who were followed by an attendant bearing the banner of the Eagle, who was followed by another attendant bearing the keys of the city upon a cushion, who was followed by Mr. Buck in a great hurry. When the King saw his strong animal face and steady eyes, he knew that he was in the presence of a great man of business, and consciously braced himself.
“Well, well,” he said, cheerily coming down two or three steps from a dais, and striking his hands lightly together, “I am glad to see you. Never mind, never mind. Ceremony is not everything.”
“I don’t understand your Majesty,” said the Provost stolidly.
“Never mind, never mind,” said the King, gaily. “A knowledge of Courts is by no means an unmixed merit; you will do it next time, no doubt.”
The man of business looked at him sulkily from under his black brows and said again without show of civility:
“I don’t follow you.”
“Well, well,” replied the King, good-naturedly, “if you ask me I don’t mind telling you, not because I myself attach any importance to these forms in comparison with the Honest Heart. But it is usual…it is usual…that is all, for a man when entering the presence of Royalty to lie down on his back on the floor and elevating his feet towards heaven (as the source of Royal power) to say three times ‘Monarchical institutions improve the manners.’ But there, there-such pomp is far less truly dignified than your simple kindliness.”
The Provost’s face was red with anger and he maintained silence.
“And now,” said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating air of a man softening a snub; “what delightful weather we are having! You must find your official robes warm, my Lord. I designed them for your own snow-bound land.”
“They’re as hot as hell,” said Buck, briefly. “I came here on business.”
“Right,” said the King, nodding a great number of times with quite unmeaning solemnity; “right, right, right. Business, as the sad glad old Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pen to the shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not whence you come nor why. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not when you go nor where.”
The Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and savagely flapped them open.
“Your Majesty may have heard,” he began, sarcastically, “of Hammersmith and a thing called a road. We have been at work ten years buying property and getting compulsory powers and fixing compensation and squaring vested interests, and now at the very end, the thing is stopped by a fool. Old Prout, who was Provost of Notting Hill, was a business man, and we dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he’s dead, and the cursed lot has fallen to a young man named Wayne, who’s up to some game that’s perfectly incomprehensible to me. We offer him a better price than any one ever dreamt of, but he won’t let the road go through. And his Council seem to be backing him up. It’s midsummer madness.”
The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing the Provost’s nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last two words.
“What a perfect phrase that is,” he said. “‘Midsummer madness!’”
“The chief point is,” continued Buck, doggedly, “that the only part that is really in question is one dirty little street…Pump Street…a street with nothing in it but a public house and a penny toy-shop, and that sort of thing. All the respectable people of Notting Hill have accepted our compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out over Pump Street. Says he’s Provost of Notting Hill. He’s only Provost of Pump Street.”
“A good thought,” replied Auberon. “I like the idea of a Provost of Pump Street. Why not let him alone?”
“And drop the whole scheme!” cried out Buck, with a burst of brutal spirit. “I’ll be damned if we do. No. I’m for sending in workmen to pull down without more ado.”
“Strike for the purple Eagle,” cried the King, hot with historical associations.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Buck, losing his temper altogether. “If your Majesty would spend less time in insulting respectable people with your silly coats-of-arms, and more time over the business of the nation…”
The King’s brow wrinkled thoughtfully.
“The situation is not bad,” he said; “the haughty burgher defying the King in his own Palace. The burgher’s head should be thrown back and the right arm extended; the left may be lifted towards Heaven, but that I leave to your private religious sentiment. I have sunk back in this chair, stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please.”
Buck’s mouth opened like a dog’s, but before he could speak another herald appeared at the door.
“The Lord High Provost of Bayswater,” he said, “desires an audience.”
“Admit him,” said Auberon. “This is a jolly day.”
The halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of green, and the banner which was borne after them was emblazoned with a green bay-wreath on a silver ground, which the King, in the course of his researches into a bottle of champagne, had discovered to be the quaint old punning cognisance of the city of Bayswater.
“It is a fit symbol,” said the King, “your immortal bay-wreath. Fulham may seek for wealth, and Kensington for art, but when did the men of Bayswater care for anything but glory?”
Immediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden by it, came the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes of green and silver with white fur and crowned with bay. He was an anxious little man with red whiskers, originally the owner of a small sweet-stuff shop.
“Our cousin of Bayswater,” said the King, with delight; “what can we get for you?” The King was heard also distinctly to mutter, “Cold beef, cold ‘am, cold chicken,” his voice dying into silence.
“I came to see your Majesty,” said the Provost of Bayswater, whose name was Wilson, “about that Pump Street affair.”
“I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty,” said Buck, curtly, but recovering his civility. “I am not sure, however, whether his Majesty knows how much the matter affects you also.”
“It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme was started for the benefit of the ‘ole neighbourhood. So Mr. Buck and me we put our ‘eads together…”
The King clasped his hands.
“Perfect,” he cried in ecstacy. “Your heads together! I can see it! Can’t you do it now? Oh, do do it now.”
A smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the halberdiers, but Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and Mr. Buck merely diabolical.
“I suppose,” he began, bitterly, but the King stopped him with a gesture of listening.
“Hush,” he said, “I think I hear some one else coming. I seem to hear another herald, a herald whose boots creak.”
As he spoke another voice cried from the doorway:
“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an audience.”
“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!” cried the King. “Why, that is my old friend James Barker! What does he want, I wonder? If the tender memories of friendship have not grown misty, I fancy he wants something for himself, probably money. How are you, James?”
Mr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid blue, and whose blue banner bore three gold birds singing, rushed, in his blue and gold robes, into the room. Despite the absurdity of all the dresses, it was worth noticing that he carried his better than the rest, though he loathed it as much as any of them. He was a gentleman, and a very handsome man, and could not help unconsciously wearing even his preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, but with the slight initial hesitation he always showed in addressing the King, due to suppressing an impulse to address his old acquaintance in the old way.
“Your Majesty…pray forgive my intrusion. It is about this man at Pump Street. I see you have Buck here, so you have probably heard what is necessary. I…”
The King swept his eyes anxiously round the room, which now blazed with the trappings of three cities.
“There is one thing necessary,” he said.
“Yes, your Majesty,” said Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, a little eagerly. “What does yer Majesty think necessary?”
“A little yellow,” said the King, firmly. “Send for the Provost of West Kensington.”
Amid some materialistic protests he was sent for and arrived with his yellow halberdiers in his saffron robes, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. After all, placed as he was, he had a good deal to say on the matter.
“Welcome, West Kensington,” said the King. “I have long wished to see you, touching that matter of the Hammersmith land to the south of the Rowton House. Will you hold it feudally from the Provost of Hammersmith? You have only to do him homage by putting his left arm in his overcoat and then marching home in state.”
“No, your Majesty; I’d rather not,” said the Provost of West Kensington, who was a pale young man with a fair moustache and whiskers, who kept a successful dairy.
The King struck him heartily on the shoulder.
“The fierce old West Kensington blood,” he said; “they are not wise who ask it to do homage.”
Tnen he glanced again round the room. It was full of a roaring sunset of colour, and he enjoyed the sight, possible to so few artists…the sight of his own dreams moving and blazing before him. In the foreground the yellow of the West Kensington liveries outlined itself against the dark blue draperies of South Kensington. The crests of these again brightened suddenly into green as the almost woodland colours of Bayswater rose behind them. And over and behind all, the great purple plumes of North Kensington showed almost funereal and black.
“There is something lacking,” said the King, “something lacking. What can…Ah, there it is!…there it is!”
In the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in flaming red. He cried in a loud but unemotional voice:
“The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires an audience.”
CHAPTER III
ENTER A LUNATIC
THE King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfather of King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day to his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the Provost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable addition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who carried the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merely for the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the room with a comparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of the King’s intellectual pleasure consisted in the contrast between the arrogance of their swords and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. But these Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold had the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to be taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into position with an almost startling dignity, and discipline.
They carried a yellow banner with a great red lion, named by the King as the Notting Hill emblem, after a small public-house in the neighbourhood, which he once frequented.
Between the two lines of his followers there advanced towards the King a tall, red-haired young man, with high features, and bold blue eyes. He would have been called handsome, but that a certain indefinable air of his nose being too big for his face, and his feet for his legs, gave him a look of awkwardness and extreme youth. His robes were red, according to the King’s heraldry, and alone among the Provosts, he was girt with a great sword. This was Adam Wayne, the intractable Provost of Notting Hill.
The King flung himself back in his chair, and rubbed his hands.
“What a day, what a day!” he said to himself. “Now there’ll be a row. I’d no idea it would be such fun as it is. These Provosts are so very indignant, so very reasonable, so very right. This fellow, by the look in his eyes, is even more indignant than the rest. No sign in those large blue eyes, at any rate, of ever having heard of a joke. He’ll remonstrate with the others, and they’ll remonstrate with him, and they’ll all make themselves sumptuously happy remonstrating with me.”
“Welcome, my Lord,” he said aloud. “What news from the Hill of a Hundred Legends? What have you for the ear of your King? I know that troubles have arisen between you and these others, our cousins, but these troubles it shall be our pride to compose. And I doubt not, and cannot doubt, that your love for me is not less tender, no less ardent than theirs.”
Mr. Buck made a bitter face, and James Barker’s nostrils curled; Wilson began to giggle faintly, and the Provost of West Kensington followed in a smothered way. But the big blue eyes of Adam Wayne never changed, and he called out in an odd, boyish voice down the hall:
“I bring homage to my King. I bring him the only thing I have…my sword.”
And with a great gesture he flung it down on the ground, and knelt on one knee behind it.
There was a dead silence.
“I beg your pardon,” said the King, blankly.
“You speak well, sire,” said Adam Wayne, “as you ever speak, when you say that my love is not less than the love of these. Small would it be if it were not more. For I am the heir of your scheme…the child of the great Charter. I stand here for the rights the Charter gave me, and I swear, by your sacred crown, that where I stand, I stand fast.”
The eyes of all five men stood out of their heads.
Then Buck said, in his jolly, jarring voice: “Is the whole world mad?”
The King sprang to his feet, and his eyes blazed.
“Yes,” he cried, in a voice of exultation, “the whole world is mad, but Adam Wayne and me. It is true as death what I told you long ago, James Barker, seriousness sends men mad. You are mad, because you care for politics, as mad as a man who collects tram tickets. Buck is mad, because he cares for money, as mad as a man who lives on opium. Wilson is mad, because he thinks himself right, as mad as a man who thinks himself God Almighty. The Provost of West Kensington is mad, because he thinks he is respectable, as mad as a man who thinks he is a chicken. All men are mad, but the humourist, who cares for nothing and possesses everything. I thought that there was only one humourist in England. Fools!…dolts!…open your cows’ eyes; there are two! In Notting Hill… in that unpromising elevation…there has been born an artist! You thought to spoil my joke, and bully me out of it, by becoming more and more modern, more and more practical, more and more bustling and rational. Oh, what a feast it was to answer you by becoming more and more august, more and more gracious, more and more ancient and mellow! But this lad has seen how to bowl me out. He has answered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric. He has lifted the only shield I cannot break, the shield of an impenetrable pomposity. Listen to him. You have come, my Lord, about Pump Street?”
“About the city of Notting Hill,” answered Wayne, proudly. “Of which Pump Street is a living and rejoicing part.”
“Not a very large part,” said Barker, contemptuously.
“That which is large enough for the rich to covet,” said Wayne, drawing up his head, “is large enough for the poor to defend.”
The King slapped both his legs, and waved his feet for a second in the air.
“Every respectable person in Notting Hill,” cut in Buck, with his cold, coarse voice, “is for us and against you. I have plenty of friends in Notting Hill.”
“Your friends are those who have taken your gold for other men’s hearthstones, my Lord Buck,” said Provost Wayne. “I can well believe they are your friends.”
“They’ve never sold dirty toys, anyhow,” said Buck, laughing shortly.
“They’ve sold dirtier things,” said Wayne, calmly; “they have sold themselves.”
“It’s no good, my Buckling,” said the King, rolling about on his chair. “You can’t cope with this chivalrous eloquence. You can’t cope with an artist. You can’t cope with the humourist of Notting Hill. O, Nunc dimittis…that I have lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, you stand firm?”
“Let them wait and see,” said Wayne. “If I stood firm before, do you think I shall weaken now that I have seen the face of the King? For I fight for something greater, if greater there can be, than the hearthstones of my people and the Lordship of the Lion. I fight for your royal vision, for the great dream you dreamt of the League of the Free Cities. You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggar and you had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance and you had flung me a favour, do you think I would have let it be taken by any ruffians on the road? This leadership and liberty of Notting Hill is a gift from your Majesty. And if it is taken from me, by God! it shall be taken in battle, and the noise of that battle shall be heard in the flats of Chelsea and in the studios of St. John’s Wood.”
“It is too much…it is too much,” said the King. “Nature is weak. I must speak to you, brother artist, without further disguise. Let me ask you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, don’t you think it splendid?”
“Splendid!” cried Adam Wayne. “It has the splendour of God.”
“Bowled out again,” said the King. “You will keep up the pose. Funnily, of course, it is serious. But seriously, isn’t it funny?”
“What?” asked Wayne, with the eyes of a baby.
“Hang it all, don’t play any more. The whole business…the Charter of the Cities. Isn’t it immense?”
“Immense is no unworthy word for that glorious design.”
“Oh, hang you…but, of course, I see. You want me to clear the room of these reasonable sows. You want the two humourists alone together. Leave us, gentlemen.”
Buck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the whole pageant of blue and green, of red, gold and purple rolled out of the room, leaving only two in the great hall, the King sitting in his seat on the dais, and the red-clad figure still kneeling on the floor before his fallen sword.
The King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on the back.
“Before the stars were made,” he cried, “we were made for each other. It is too beautiful. Think of the valiant independence of Pump Street. That is the real thing. It is the deification of the ludicrous.”
The kneeling figure sprang to his feet with a fierce stagger.
“Ludicrous!” he cried, with a fiery face.
“Oh, come, come,” said the King, impatiently. “You needn’t keep it up with me. The augurs must wink sometimes from sheer fatigue of the eyelids. Let us enjoy this for half an hour, not as actors, but as dramatic critics. Isn’t it a joke?”
Adam Wayne looked down like a boy, and answered in a constrained voice:
“I do not understand your Majesty. I cannot believe that while I fight for your royal charter your Majesty deserts me for these dogs of the gold hunt.”
“Oh, damn your…But what’s this? What the devil’s this?”
The King stared into the young Provost’s face, and in the twilight of the room began to see that his face was quite white, and his lip shaking.
“What in God’s name is the matter?” cried Auberon, holding his wrist.
Wayne flung back his face, and the tears were shining on it.
“I am only a boy,” he said, “but it’s true. I would paint the Red Lion on my shield if I had only my blood.”
King Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring, thunderstruck.
“My God in Heaven!” he said; “is it possible that there is within the four seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill seriously?”
“And my God in Heaven!” said Wayne passionately; “is it possible that there is within the four seas of Britain a man who does not take it seriously?”
The King said nothing, but merely went back up the steps of the dais like a man dazed. He fell back in his chair again and kicked his heels.
“If this sort of thing is to go on,” he said weakly, “I shall begin to doubt the superiority of art to life. In Heaven’s name, do not play with me. Do you really mean that you are…God help me!…a Notting Hill patriot…that you are…”
Wayne made a violent gesture, and the King soothed him wildly.
“All right…all right…I see you are; but let me take it in. You do really propose to fight these modern improvers with their boards and inspectors and surveyors and all the rest of it…”
“Are they so terrible?” asked Wayne, scornfully.
The King continued to stare at him as if he were a human curiosity.
“And I suppose,” he said, “that you think that the dentists and small tradesmen and maiden ladies who inhabit Notting Hill, will rally with war-hymns to your standard?”
“If they have blood they will,” said the Provost.
“And I suppose,” said the King, with his head back among the cushions, “that it never crossed your mind that…his voice seemed to lose itself luxuriantly…never crossed your mind that any one ever thought that the idea of a Notting Hill idealism was…er…slightly…slightly ridiculous.”
“Of course they think so,” said Wayne. “What was the meaning of mocking the prophets?”
“Where?” asked the King, leaning forward. “Where in Heaven’s name did you get this miraculously inane idea?”
“You have been my tutor, Sire,” said the Provost, “in all that is high and honourable.”
“Eh?” said the King.
“It was your Majesty who first stirred my dim patriotism into flame. Ten years ago, when I was a boy (I am only nineteen), I was playing on the slope of Pump Street, with a wooden sword and a paper helmet, dreaming of great wars. In an angry trance I struck out with my sword and stood petrified, for I saw that I had struck you, Sire, my King, as you wandered in a noble secrecy, watching over your people’s welfare. But I need have had no fear. Then was I taught to understand kingliness. You neither shrank nor frowned. You summoned no guards. You invoked no punishments. But in august and burning words, which are written in my soul, never to be erased, you told me ever to turn my sword against the enemies of my inviolate city. Like a priest pointing to the altar, you pointed to the hill of Notting. ’ So long,’ you said, ’ as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of Bayswater.’ I have not forgotten the words, and I have reason now to remember them, for the hour is come and the crown of your prophecy. The sacred hill is ringed with the armies of Bayswater, and I am ready to die.”
The King was lying back in his chair, a kind of wreck.
“O Lord, Lord, Lord,” he murmured, “what a life! what a life! All my work! I seem to have done it all. So you’re the red-haired boy that hit me in the waistcoat. What have I done? God, what have I done? I thought I would have a joke, and I have created a passion. I tried, to compose a burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through into an epic. What is to be done with such a world? In the Lord’s name, wasn’t the joke broad and bold enough? I abandoned my subtle humour to amuse you, and I seem to have brought tears to your eyes. What’s to be done with people when you write a pantomime for them…call the sausages classic festoons, and the policeman cut in two a tragedy of public duty? But why am I talking? Why am I asking questions of a nice young gentleman who is totally mad? What is the good of it? What is the good of anything? O Lord, O Lord!”
Suddenly he pulled himself upright.
“Don’t you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?”
“Absurd?” asked Wayne, blankly. “Why should I?”
The King stared back equally blankly.
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
“Notting Hill,” said the Provost, simply, “is a rise or high ground of the common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in which they are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I think it absurd?”
The King smiled.
“Because, my Leonidas…” he began, then suddenly, he knew not how, found his mind was a total blank. After all, why was it absurd? Why was it absurd? He felt as if the floor of his mind had given way. He felt as all men feel when their first principles are hit hard with a question. Barker always felt so when the King said, “Why trouble about politics?”
The King’s thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not collect them.
“It is generally felt to be a little funny,” he said, vaguely.
“I suppose,” said Adam, turning on him with a fierce suddenness, “I suppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious affair?”
“Well, I…” began Auberon, “I admit I have generally thought it had its graver side.”
“Then you are wrong,” said Wayne, with incredible violence. “Crucifixion is comic. It is exquisitely diverting. It was an absurd and obscene kind of impaling reserved for people who were made to be laughed at…for slaves and provincials…for dentists and small tradesmen, as you would say. I have seen the grotesque gallows-shape, which the little Roman gutter-boys scribbled on walls as a vulgar joke, blazing on the pinnacles of the temples of the world. And shall I turn back?”
The King made no answer.
Adam went on, his voice ringing in the roof.
“This laughter with which men tyrannize is not the great power you think it. Peter was crucified, and crucified head downwards. What could be funnier than the idea of a respectable old Apostle upside down? What could be more in the style of your modern humour? But what was the good of it? Upside down or right side up, Peter was Peter to mankind. Upside down he still hangs over Europe, and millions move and breathe only in the life of his church.”
King Auberon got up absently.
“There is something in what you say,” he said. “You seem to have been thinking, young man.”
“Only feeling, sire,” answered the Provost. “I was born, like other men, in a spot of the earth which I loved because I had played boys’ games there, and fallen in love, and talked with my friends through nights that were nights of the gods. And I feel the riddle. These little gardens where we told our loves. These streets where we brought out our dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they be absurd? Why should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box is poetic when for a year I could not see a red pillar-box against the yellow evening in a certain street without being wracked with something of which God keeps the secret, but which is stronger than sorrow or joy? Why should any one be able to raise a laugh by saying ‘the Cause of Notting Hill’?…Notting Hill where thousands of immortal spirits blaze with alternate hope and fear.”
Auberon was flicking dust off his sleeve with quite a new seriousness on his face, distinct from the owlish solemnity which was the pose of his humour.
“It is very difficult,” he said at last. “It is a damned difficult thing. I see what you mean…I agree with you even up to a point…or I should like to agree with you, if I were young enough to be a prophet and poet. I feel a truth in everything you say until you come to the words ’ Notting Hill.’ And then I regret to say that the old Adam awakes roaring with laughter and makes short work of the new Adam, whose name is Wayne.”
For the first time Provost Wayne Was silent, and stood gazing dreamily at the floor. Evening was closing in, and the room had grown darker.
“I know,” he said, in a strange, almost sleepy voice, “there is truth in what you say, too. It is hard not to laugh at the common names…I only say we should not. I have thought of a remedy; but such thoughts are rather terrible.”
“What thoughts?” asked Auberon.
The Provost of Notting Hill seemed to have fallen into a kind of trance; in his eyes was an elvish light.
“I know of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or two may rightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of great fear, stronger than those who use it…often frightful, often wicked to use. But whatever is touched with it is never again wholly common. Whatever is touched with it takes a magic from outside the world. If I touch, with this fairy wand, the railways and the roads of Notting Hill, men will love them, and be afraid of them for ever.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” asked the King.
“It has made mean landscapes magnificent, and hovels outlast cathedrals,” went on the madman. “Why should it not make lampposts fairer than Greek lamps, and an omnibus ride like a painted ship? The touch of it is the finger of a strange perfection.”
“What is your wand?” cried the King, impatiently.
“There it is,” said Wayne; and pointed to the floor, where his sword lay flat and shining.
“The sword!” cried the King; and sprang up straight on the dais.
“Yes, yes,” cried Wayne, hoarsely. “The things touched by that are not vulgar. The things touched by that…”
King Auberon made a gesture of horror.
“You will shed blood for that!” he cried. “For a cursed point of view…”
“Oh, you kings, you kings,” cried out Adam, in a burst of scorn. “How humane you are, how tender, how considerate. You will make war for a frontier, or the imports of a foreign harbour; you will shed blood for the precise duty on lace, or the salute to an admiral. But for the things that make life itself worthy or miserable…how humane you are. I say here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never any necessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any just wars but the religious wars. There were never any humane wars but the religious wars. For these men were fighting for something that claimed, at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue of a man. A Crusader thought, at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man, king or tinker, that it could really capture. I think Buck and Barker and these rich vultures hurt the soul of every man, hurt every inch of the ground, hurt every brick of the houses, that they can really capture. Do you think I have no right to fight for Notting Hill, you whose English Government has so often fought for tomfooleries? If, as your rich friends say, there are no gods, and the skies are dark above us, what should a man fight for, but the place where he had the Eden of childhood and the short heaven of first love? If no temples and no scriptures are sacred, what is sacred if a man’s own youth is not sacred?”
The King walked a little restlessly up and down the dais.
“It is hard,” he said, biting his lips, “to assent to a view so desperate…so responsible…”
As he spoke, the door of the audience chamber fell ajar, and through the aperture came, like the sudden chatter of a bird, the high, nasal, but well-bred voice of Barker.
“I said to him quite plainly…the public interests…”
Auberon turned on Wayne with violence.
“What the devil is all this? What am I saying? What are you saying? Have you hypnotized me? Curse your uncanny blue eyes! Let me go. Give me back my sense of humour. Give it me back. Give it me back, I say!”
“I solemnly assure you,” said Wayne, uneasily, with a gesture, as if feeling all over himself, “that I haven’t got it.”
The King fell back in his chair, and went into a roar of Rabelaisian laughter.
“I don’t think you have,” he cried.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
THE MENTAL CONDITION OF ADAM WAYNE
A LITTLE while after the King’s accession a small book of poems appeared, called “Hymns of the Hill.” They were not good poems, nor was the book successful, but it attracted a certain amount of attention from one particular school of critics. The King himself, who was a member of the school, reviewed it in his capacity of literary critic to “Straight from the Stables,” a sporting journal. They were known as the Hammock School, because it had been calculated malignantly by an enemy that no less than thirteen of their delicate criticisms had begun with the words, “I read this book in a hammock; half asleep in the sleepy sunlight, I…”; after that there were important differences. Under these conditions they liked everything, but especially everything silly. “Next to authentic goodness in a book,” they said “next to authentic goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a rich badness.” Thus it happened that their praise (as indicating the presence of a rich badness) was not universally sought after, and authors became a little disquieted when they found the eye of the Hammock School fixed upon them with peculiar favour.
The peculiarity of “Hymns of the Hill” was the celebration of the poetry of London as distinct from the poetry of the country. This sentiment or affectation was, of course, not uncommon in the twentieth century, nor was it, although sometimes exaggerated, and sometimes artificial, by any means without a great truth at its root, for there is one respect in which a town must be more poetical than the country, since it is closer to the spirit of man; for London, if it be not one of the masterpieces of man, is at least one of his sins. A street is really more poetical than a meadow, because a street has a secret. A street is going somewhere, and a meadow nowhere. But, in the case of the book called “Hymns on the Hill,” there was another peculiarity, which the King pointed out with great acumen in his review. He was naturally interested in the matter, for he had himself published a volume of lyrics about London under his pseudonym of “Daisy Daydream.”
This difference, as the King pointed out, consisted in the fact that, while mere artificers like “Daisy Daydream” (on whose elaborate style the King, over his signature of “Thunderbolt,” was perhaps somewhat too severe) thought to praise London by comparing it to the country…using nature, that is, as a background from which all poetical images had to be drawn…the more robust author of “Hymns of the Hill” praised the country, or nature, by comparing it to the town, and used the town itself as a background. “Take,” said the critic, “the typically feminine lines, ’ To the Inventor of the Hansom Cab’”
’ Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, Where twain may dwell.’
“Surely,” wrote the King, “no one but a woman could have written those lines. A woman has always a weakness for nature; with her, art is only beautiful as an echo or shadow of it. She is praising the hansom cab by theme and theory, but her soul is still a child by the sea, picking up shells. She can never be utterly of the town, as a man can; indeed, do we not speak (with sacred propriety) of ‘a man about town’? Who ever spoke of a woman about town? However much, physically, ‘about town’ a woman may be, she still models herself on nature; she tries to carry nature with her; she bids grasses to grow on her head, and furry beasts to bite her about the throat. In the heart of a dim city, she models her hat on a flaring cottage garden of flowers. We, with our nobler civic sentiment, model ours on a chimney pot; the ensign of civilization. And rather than be without birds, she will commit massacre, that she may turn her head into a tree, with dead birds to sing on it.”
This kind of thing went on for several pages, and then the critic remembered his subject, and returned to it.
“Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, Where twain may dwell.”
“The peculiarity of these fine though feminine lines,” continued “Thunderbolt,” “is, as we have said, that they praise the hansom cab by comparing it to the shell, to a natural thing. Now, hear the author of ’ Hymns of the Hill,’ and how he deals with the same subject. In his fine nocturne, entitled ’ The Last Omnibus,’ he relieves the rich and poignant melancholy of the theme by a sudden sense of rushing at the end”
’ The wind round the old street corner Swung sudden and quick as a cab.’
“Here the distinction is obvious. ’ Daisy Daydream’ thinks it a great compliment to a hansom cab to be compared to one of the spiral chambers of the sea. And the author of ’ Hymns on the Hill’ thinks it a great compliment to the immortal whirlwind to be compared to a hackney coach. He surely is the real admirer of London. We have no space to speak of all his perfect applications of the idea; of the poem in which, for instance, a lady’s eyes are compared, not to stars, but to two perfect street-lamps guiding the wanderer. We have no space to speak of the fine lyric, recalling the Elizabethan spirit, in which the poet, instead of saying that the rose and the lily contend in her complexion, says, with a purer modernism, that the red omnibus of Hammersmith and the white omnibus of Fulham fight there for the mastery. How perfect the image of two contending omnibuses!”
Here, somewhat abruptly, the review concluded, probably because the King had to send off his copy at that moment, as he was in some want of money. But the King was a very good critic, whatever he may have been as King, and he had, to a considerable extent, hit the right nail on the head. “Hymns on the Hill” was not at all like the poems originally published in praise of the poetry of London. And the reason was that it was really written by a man who had seen nothing else but London, and who regarded it, therefore, as the universe. It was written by a raw, red-headed lad of seventeen, named Adam Wayne, who had been born in Notting Hill. An accident in his seventh year prevented his being taken away to the seaside, and thus his whole life had been passed in his own Pump Street, and in its neighbourhood. And the consequence was, that he saw the street-lamps as things quite as eternal as the stars; the two fires were mingled. He saw the houses as things enduring, like the mountains, and so he wrote about them as one would write about mountains. Nature puts on a disguise when she speaks to every man; to this man she put on the disguise of Notting Hill. Nature would mean to a poet born in the Cumberland hills, a stormy skyline and sudden rocks. Nature would mean to a poet born in the Essex flats, a waste of splendid waters and splendid sunsets. So nature meant to this man Wayne a line of violet roofs and lemon lamps, the chiaroscuro of the town. He did not think it clever or funny to praise the shadows and colours of the town; he had seen no other shadows or colours, and so he praised them…because they were shadows and colours. He saw all this because he was a poet, though in practice a bad poet. It is too often forgotten that just as a bad man is nevertheless a man, so a bad poet is nevertheless a poet.
Mr. Wayne’s little volume of verse was a complete failure; and he submitted to the decision of fate with a quite rational humility, went back to his work, which was that of a draper’s assistant, and wrote no more. He still retained his feeling about the town of Notting Hill, because he could not possibly have any other feeling, because it was the back and base of his brain. But he does not seem to have made any particular attempt to express it or insist upon it.
He was a genuine natural mystic, one of those who live on the border of fairyland. But he was perhaps the first to realize how often the boundary of fairyland runs through a crowded city. Twenty feet from him (for he was very short-sighted) the red and white and yellow suns of the gas-lights thronged and melted into each other like an orchard of fiery trees, the beginning of the woods of elf-land.
But, oddly enough, it was because he was a small poet that he came to his strange and isolated triumph. It was because he was a failure in literature that he became a portent in English history. He was one of those to whom nature has given the desire without the power of artistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a treasure of new and sensational song. But he was born under the lucky star of a single coincidence. He happened to be at the head of his dingy municipality at the time of the King’s jest, at the time when all municipalities were suddenly commanded to break out into banners and flowers. Out of the long procession of the silent poets who have been passing since the beginning of the world, this one man found himself in the midst of an heraldic vision, in which he could act and speak and live lyrically. While the author and the victims alike treated the whole matter as a silly public charade, this one man, by taking it seriously, sprang suddenly into a throne of artistic omnipotence. Armour, music, standards, watch-fires, the noise of drums, all the theatrical properties were thrown before him. This one poor rhymster, having burnt his own rhymes, began to live that life of open air and acted poetry of which all the poets of the earth have dreamed in vain; the life for which the Iliad is only a cheap substitute.
Upwards from his abstracted childhood, Adam Wayne had grown strongly and silently in a certain quality or capacity which is in modern cities almost entirely artificial, but which can be natural, and was primarily almost brutally natural in him, the quality or capacity of patriotism. It exists, like other virtues and vices, in a certain undiluted reality. It is not confused with all kinds of other things. A child speaking of his country or his village may make every mistake in Mandeville or tell every lie in Munchausen, but in his statement there will be no psychological lies any more than there can be in a good song. Adam Wayne, as a boy, had for his dull streets in Notting Hill the ultimate and ancient sentiment that went out to Athens or Jerusalem. He knew the secret of the passion, those secrets which make real old national songs sound so strange to our civilization. He knew that real patriotism tends to sing about sorrows and forlorn hopes much more than about victory. He knew that in proper names themselves is half the poetry of all national poems. Above all, he knew the supreme psychological fact about patriotism, as certain in connection with it as that a fine shame comes to all lovers, the fact that the patriot never under any circumstances boasts of the largeness of his country, but always, and of necessity, boasts of the smallness of it.
All this he knew, not because he was a philosopher or a genius, but because he was a child. Any one who cares to walk up a side slum like Pump Street, can see a little Adam claiming to be king of a paving-stone. And he will always be proudest if the stone is almost too narrow for him to keep his feet inside it.
It was while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, marking out some strip of street or fortress of steps as the limit of his haughty claim, that the King had met him, and, with a few words flung in mockery, ratified for ever the strange boundaries of his soul. Thenceforward the fanciful idea of the defence of Notting Hill in war became to him a thing as solid as eating or drinking or lighting a pipe. He disposed his meals for it, altered his plans for it, lay awake in the night and went over it again. Two or three shops were to him an arsenal; an area was to him a moat; corners of balconies and turns of stone steps were points for the location of a culverin or an archer. It is almost impossible to convey to any ordinary imagination the degree to which he had transmitted the leaden London landscape to a romantic gold. The process began almost in babyhood, and became habitual like a literal madness. It was felt most keenly at night, when London is really herself, when her lights shine in the dark like the eyes of innumerable cats, and the outline of the dark houses has the bold simplicity of blue hills. But for him the night revealed instead of concealing, and he read all the blank hours of morning and afternoon, by a contradictory phrase, in the light of that darkness. To this man, at any rate, the inconceivable had happened. The artificial city had become to him nature, and he felt the curb-stones and gas-lamps as things as ancient as the sky.
One instance may suffice. Walking along Pump Street with a friend, he said, as he gazed dreamily at the iron fence of a little front garden, “How those railings stir one’s blood.”
His friend, who was also a great intellectual admirer, looked at them painfully, but without any particular emotion. He was so troubled about it that he went back quite a large number of times on quiet evenings and stared at the railings, waiting for something to happen to his blood, but without success. At last he took refuge in asking Wayne himself. He discovered that the ecstacy lay in the one point he had never noticed about the railings even after his six visits, the fact that they were like the great majority of others in London, shaped at the top after the manner of a spear. As a child, Wayne had half unconsciously compared them with the spears in pictures of Lancelot and St. George, and had grown up under the shadow of the graphic association. Now, whenever he looked at them, they were simply the serried weapons that made a hedge of steel round the sacred homes of Notting Hill. He could not have cleansed his mind of that meaning even if he tried. It was not a fanciful comparison, or anything like it. It would not have been true to say that the familiar railings reminded him of spears; it would have been far truer to say that the familiar spears occasionally reminded him of railings.
A couple of days after his interview with the King, Adam Wayne was pacing like a caged lion in front of five shops that occupied the upper end of the disputed street. They were a grocer’s, a chemist’s, a barber’s, an old curiosity shop, and a toy-shop that sold also newspapers. It was these five shops which his childish fastidiousness had first selected as the essentials of the Notting Hill campaign, the citadel of the city. If Notting Hill was the heart of the universe, and Pump Street was the heart of Notting Hill, this was the heart of Pump Street. The fact that they were all small and side by side realized that feeling for a formidable comfort and compactness which, as we have said, was the heart of his patriotism and of all patriotism. The grocer (who had a wine and spirit licence) was included because he could provision the garrison; the old curiosity shop because it contained enough swords, pistols, partisans, cross-bows, and blunderbusses to arm a whole irregular regiment; the toy and paper shop because Wayne thought a free press an essential centre for the soul of Pump Street; the chemist’s to cope with outbreaks of disease among the besieged; and the barber’s because it was in the middle of all the rest, and the barber’s son was an intimate friend and spiritual affinity.
It was a cloudless October evening settling down through purple into pure silver around the roofs and chimneys of the steep little street, which looked black and sharp and dramatic. In the deep shadows the gas-lit shop fronts gleamed like five fires in a row, and before them, darkly outlined like a ghost against some purgatorial furnaces, passed to and fro the tall bird-like figure and eagle nose of Adam Wayne.
He swung his stick restlessly, and seemed fitfully talking to himself.
“There are, after all, enigmas,” he said, “even to the man who has faith. There are doubts that remain even after the true philosophy is completed in every rung and rivet. And here is one of them. Is the normal human need, the normal human condition, higher or lower than those special spates of the soul which call out a doubtful and dangerous glory? those special powers of knowledge or sacrifice which are made possible only by the existence of evil? Which should come first to our affections, the enduring sanities of peace or the half-maniacal virtues of battle? Which should come first, the man great in the daily round or the man great in emergency? Which should come first, to return to the enigma before me, the grocer or the chemist? Which is more certainly the stay of the city, the swift chivalrous chemist or the benignant all-providing, grocer? In such ultimate spiritual doubts it is only possible to choose a side by the higher instincts and to abide the issue. In any case, I have made my choice. May I be pardoned if I choose wrongly, but I choose the grocer.”
“Good morning, sir,” said the grocer, who was a middle-aged man, partially bald, with harsh red whiskers and beard, and forehead lined with all the cares of the small tradesman. “What can I do for you, sir?”
Wayne removed his hat on entering the shop, with a ceremonious gesture, which, slight as it was, made the tradesman eye him with the beginnings of wonder.
“I come, sir,” he said soberly, “to appeal to your patriotism.”
“Why, sir,” said the grocer, “that sounds like the times when I was a boy and we used to have elections.”
“You will have them again,” said Wayne, firmly, “and far greater things. Listen, Mr. Mead. I know the temptations which a grocer has to a too cosmopolitan philosophy. I can imagine what it must be to sit all day as you do surrounded with wares from all the ends of the earth, from strange seas that we have never sailed and strange forests that we could not even picture. No Eastern king ever had such argosies or such cargoes coming from the sunrise and the sunset, and Solomon in all his glory was not enriched like one of you. India is at your elbow,” he cried, lifting his voice and pointing his stick at a drawer of rice, the grocer making a movement of some alarm, “China is before you, Demerara is behind you, America is above your head, and at this very moment, like some old Spanish admiral, you hold Tunis in your hands.”
Mr. Mead dropped the box of dates which he was just lifting, and then picked it up again vaguely.
Wayne went on with a heightened colour, but in a lowered voice:
“I know, I say, the temptations of so international, so universal a vision of wealth. I know that it must be your danger not to fall like many tradesmen into too dusty and mechanical a narrowness, but rather to be too broad, to be too general, too liberal. If a narrow nationalism be the danger of the pastrycook who makes his own wares under his own heavens, no less is cosmopolitanism the danger of the grocer. But I come to you in the name of that patriotism which no wanderings or enlightenments should ever wholly extinguish, and I ask you to remember Notting Hill. For, after all, in this cosmopolitan magnificence, she has played no small part. Your dates may come from the tall palms of Barbary, your sugar from the strange islands of the tropics, your tea from the secret villages of the Empire of the Dragon. That this room might be furnished, forests may have been spoiled under the Southern Cross, and leviathans speared under the Polar Star. But you yourself…surely no inconsiderable treasure…you yourself, the brain that wields these vast interests…you yourself, at least, have grown to strength and wisdom between these grey houses and under this rainy sky. This city which made you, and thus made your fortunes, is threatened with war. Come forth and tell to the ends of the earth this lesson. Oil is from the North and fruits from the South; rices are from India and spices from Ceylon; sheep are from New Zealand and men from Notting Hill.”
The grocer sat for some little while, with dim eyes and his mouth open, looking rather like a fish. Then he scratched the back of his head, and said nothing. Then he said:
“Anything out of the shop, sir?”
Wayne looked round in a dazed way. Seeing a pile of tins of pine-apple chunks, he waved his stick generally towards them.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll take those.”
“All those, sir?” said the grocer, with greatly increased interest.
“Yes, yes; all those,” replied Wayne, still a little bewildered, like a man splashed with cold water.
“Very good, sir; thank you, sir,” said the grocer with animation. “You may count upon my patriotism, sir.”
“I count upon it already,” said Wayne, and passed out into the gathering night.
The grocer put the box of dates back in its place.
“What a nice fellow he is,” he said. “It’s odd how often they are nice. Much nicer than those as are all right.”
Meanwhile Adam Wayne stood outside the glowing chemist’s shop, unmistakably wavering.
“What a weakness it is,” he muttered. “I have never got rid of it from childhood. The fear of this magic shop. The grocer is rich, he is romantic, he is poetical in the truest sense, but he is not…no, he is not supernatural. But the chemist! All the other shops stand in Notting Hill, but this stands in Elf-land. Look at those great burning bowls of colour. It must be from them that God paints the sunsets. It is superhuman, and the superhuman is all the more uncanny when it is beneficent. That is the root of the fear of God. I am afraid. But I must be a man and enter.”
He was a man, and entered. A short, dark young man was behind the counter with spectacles, and greeted him with a bright but entirely business-like smile.
“A fine evening, sir,” he said.
“Fine, indeed, strange Father,” said Adam, stretching his hands somewhat forward. “It is on such clear and mellow nights that your shop is most itself. Then they appear most perfect, those moons of green and gold and crimson, which from afar, oft guide the pilgrim of pain and sickness to this house of merciful witchcraft.”
“Can I get you anything?” asked the chemist.
“Let me see,” said Wayne, in a friendly but vague manner. “Let me have some sal-volatile.”
“Eightpence, tenpence, or one and sixpence a bottle?” said the young man genially.
“One and six…one and six,” replied Wayne, with a wild submissiveness. “I come to ask you, Mr. Bowles, a terrible question.”
He paused and collected himself.
“It is necessary,” he muttered “it is necessary to be tactful, and to suit the appeal to each profession in turn.”
“I come,” he resumed aloud, “to ask you a question which goes to the roots of your miraculous toils. Mr. Bowles, shall all this witchery cease?” And he waved his stick around the shop.
Meeting with no answer, he continued with animation:
“In Notting Hill we have felt to its core the elfish mystery of your profession. And now Notting Hill itself is threatened.”
“Anything more, sir?” asked the chemist.
“Oh,” said Wayne, somewhat disturbed, “oh, what is it chemists sell? Quinine, I think. Thank you. Shall it be destroyed? I have met these men of Bayswater and North Kensington…Mr. Bowles, they are materialists. They see no witchery in your work, even when it is brought within their own borders. They think the chemist is commonplace. They think him human.”
The chemist appeared to pause, only a moment, to take in the insult, and immediately said:
“And the next article, please?”
“Alum,” said the Provost, wildly. “I resume. It is in this sacred town alone that your priesthood is reverenced. Therefore, when you fight for us you fight not only for yourself, but for everything you typify. You fight not only for Notting Hill, but for Fairyland, for as surely as Buck and Barker and such men hold sway, the sense of Fairyland in some strange manner diminishes.”
“Anything more, sir?” asked Mr. Bowles, with unbroken cheerfulness.
“Oh yes, jujubes…Gregory powder…magnesia. The danger is imminent. In all this matter I have felt that I fought not merely for my own city (though to that I owe all my blood), but for all places in which these great ideas could prevail. I am fighting not merely for Notting Hill, but for Bayswater itself; for North Kensington itself. For if the gold-hunters prevail, these also will lose all their ancient sentiments and all the mystery of their national soul. I know I can count upon you.”
“Oh yes, sir,” said the chemist, with great animation, “we are always glad to oblige a good customer.”
Adam Wayne went out of the shop with a deep sense of fulfilment of soul.
“It is so fortunate,” he said, “to have tact, to be able to play upon the peculiar talents and specialities, the cosmopolitanism of the grocer and the world-old necromancy of the chemist. Where should I be without tact?”
CHAPTER II
THE REMARKABLE MR. TURNBULL
AFTER two more interviews with shopmen, however, the patriot’s confidence in his own psychological diplomacy began vaguely to wane. Despite the care with which he considered the peculiar rationale and the peculiar glory of each separate shop, there seemed to be something unresponsive about the shopmen. Whether it was a dark resentment against the uninitiate for peeping into their masonic magnificence, he could not quite conjecture.
His conversation with the man who kept the shop of curiosities had begun encouragingly. The man who kept the shop of curiosities had indeed enchanted him with a phrase. He was standing drearily at the door of his shop, a wrinkled man with a grey pointed beard, evidently a gentleman who had come down in the world.
“And how does your commerce go, you strange guardian of the past?” said Wayne, affably.
“Well, sir, not very well,” replied the man, with that patient voice of his class which is one of the most heart-breaking things in the world. “Things are terribly quiet.”
Wayne’s eyes shone suddenly.
“A great saying,” he said, “worthy of a man whose merchandise is human history. Terribly quiet; that is in two words the spirit of this age, as I have felt it from my cradle. I sometimes wondered how many other people felt the oppression of this union between quietude and terror. I see blank well-ordered streets, and men in black moving about inoffensively, sullenly. It goes on day after day, day after day, and nothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might awake screaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of a thin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snap with a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the debris of the great wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know that war was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idle lads who carried those swords under Francis or Elizabeth, the rude Squire or Baron who swung that mace about in Picardy or Northumberland battles, may have been terribly noisy, but were not, like us, terribly quiet.”
Whether it was a faint embarrassment of conscience as to the original source and date of the weapons referred to, or merely an engrained depression, the guardian of the past looked, if anything, a little more worried.
“But I do not think,” continued Wayne, “that this horrible silence of modernity will last, though I think for the present it will increase. What a farce is this modern liberality. Freedom of speech means practically in our modern civilization that we must only talk about unimportant things. We must not talk about religion, for that is illiberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that is talking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; we must not talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It cannot last. Something must break this strange indifference, this strange dreamy egoism, this strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something must break it. Why should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing else but guard relics?”
The shopman wore a gradually clearing expression, which would have led those unsympathetic with the cause of the Red Lion to think that the last sentence was the only one to which he had attached any meaning.
“I am rather old to go into a new business,” he said, “and I don’t quite know what to be either.”
“Why not,” said Wayne, gently having reached the crisis of his delicate persuasion “why not be a Colonel?”
It was at this point, in all probability, that the interview began to yield more disappointing results. The man appeared inclined at first to regard the suggestion of becoming a Colonel as outside the sphere of immediate and relevant discussion. A long exposition of the inevitable war of independence, coupled with the purchase of a doubtful sixteenth-century sword for an exaggerated price, seemed to resettle matters. Wayne left the shop, however, somewhat infected with the melancholy of its owner.
That melancholy was completed at the barber’s.
“Shaving, sir?” inquired that artist from inside his shop.
“War!” replied Wayne, standing on the threshold.
“I beg your pardon,” said the other sharply.
“War!” said Wayne, warmly. “But not for anything inconsistent with the beautiful and the civilized arts. War for beauty. War for society. War for peace. A great chance is offered you of repelling that slander which, in defiance of the lives of so many artists, attributes poltroonery to those who beautify and polish the surface of our lives. Why should not hairdressers be heroes? Why should not…”
“Now, you get out,” said the barber, irascibly. “We don’t want any of your sort here. You get out.”
And he came forward with the desperate annoyance of a mild person when enraged.
Adam Wayne laid his hand for a moment on the sword, then dropped it.
“Notting Hill,” he said, “will need her bolder sons;” and he turned gloomily to the toy-shop.
It was one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in the side streets of London, which must be called toy-shops only because toys upon the whole predominate; for the remainder of goods seem to consist of almost everything else in the world…tobacco, exercise-books, sweet-stuff, novelettes, halfpenny paper clips, halfpenny pencil sharpeners, bootlaces, and cheap fireworks. It also sold newspapers, and a row of dirty-looking posters hung along the front of it.
“I am afraid,” said Wayne, as he entered, “that I am not getting on with these tradesmen as I should. Is it that I have neglected to rise to the full meaning of their work? Is there some secret buried in each of these shops which no mere poet can discover?”
He stepped to the counter with a depression which he rapidly conquered as he addressed the man on the other side of it…a man of short stature, and hair prematurely white, and the look of a large baby.
“Sir,” said Wayne, “I am going from house to house in this street of ours, seeking to stir up some sense of the danger which now threatens our city. Nowhere have I felt my duty so difficult as here. For the toy-shop keeper has to do with all that remains to us of Eden before the first wars began. You sit here meditating continually upon the wants of that wonderful time when every staircase leads to the stars, and every garden-path to the other end of nowhere. Is it thoughtlessly, do you think, that I strike the dark old drum of peril in the paradise of children? But consider a moment; do not condemn me hastily. Even that paradise itself contains the rumour or beginning of that danger, just as the Eden that was made for perfection contained the terrible tree. For judge childhood, even by your own arsenal of its pleasures. You keep bricks; you make yourself thus, doubtless, the witness of the constructive instinct older than the destructive. You keep dolls; you make yourself the priest of that divine idolatry. You keep Noah’s Arks; you perpetuate the memory of the salvation of all life as a precious, an irreplaceable thing. But do you keep only, sir, the symbols of this prehistoric sanity, this childish rationality of the earth? Do you not keep more terrible things? What are those boxes, seemingly of lead soldiers, that I see in that glass case? Are they not witnesses to that terror and beauty, that desire for a lovely death, which could not be excluded even from the immortality of Eden? Do not despise the lead soldiers, Mr. Turnbull.”
“I don’t,” said Mr. Turnbull, of the toy-shop, shortly, but with great emphasis.
“I am glad to hear it,” replied Wayne. “I confess that I feared for my military schemes the awful innocence of your profession. How, I thought to myself, will this man, used only to the wooden swords that give pleasure, think of the steel swords that give pain? But I am at least partly reassured. Your tone suggests to me that I have at least the entry of a gate of your fairyland…the gate through which the soldiers enter, for it cannot be denied…I ought, sir, no longer to deny, that it is of soldiers that I come to speak. Let your gentle employment make you merciful towards the troubles of the world. Let your own silvery experience tone down our sanguine sorrows. For there is war in Notting Hill.”
The little toy-shop keeper sprang up suddenly, slapping his fat hands like two fans on the counter.
“War?” he cried. “Not really, sir? Is it true? Oh, what a joke? Oh, what a sight for sore eyes!”
Wayne was almost taken aback by this outburst.
“I am delighted,” he stammered. “I had no notion…”
He sprang out of the way just in time to avoid Mr. Turnbull, who took a flying leap over the counter and dashed to the front of the shop.
“You look here, sir,” he said; “you just look here.”
He came back with two of the torn posters in his hand which were flapping outside his shop.
“Look at those, sir,” he said, and flung them down on the counter.
Wayne bent over them, and read on one:
“LAST FIGHTING. REDUCTION OF THE CENTRAL DERVISH CITY. REMARKABLE, ETC.”
On the other he read:
“LAST SMALL REPUBLIC ANNEXED. NICARAGUAN CAPITAL SURRENDERS AFTER A MONTH’S FIGHTING. GREAT SLAUGHTER.”
Wayne bent over them again, evidently puzzled; then he looked at the dates. They were both dated in August fifteen years before.
“Why do you keep these old things?” he said, startled entirely out of his absurd tact of mysticism. “Why do you hang them outside your shop?”
“Because,” said the other simply, “they are the records of the last war. You mentioned war just now. It happens to be my hobby.”
Wayne lifted his large blue eyes with an infantile wonder.
“Come with me,” said Turnbull, shortly, and led him into a parlour at the back of the shop.
In the centre of the parlour stood a large deal table. On it were set rows and rows of the tin and lead soldiers which were part of the shopkeeper’s stock. The visitor would have thought nothing of it if it had not been for a certain odd grouping of them, which did not seem either entirely commercial or entirely haphazard.
“You are acquainted, no doubt,” said Turnbull, turning his big eyes upon Wayne “you are acquainted, no doubt, with the arrangement of the American and Nicaraguan troops in the last battle.” And he waved his hand towards the table.
“I am afraid not,” said Wayne. “I…”
“Ah, you were at that time occupied too much, perhaps with the Dervish affair. You will find it in this corner.” And he pointed to a part of the floor where there was another arrangement of children’s soldiers grouped here and there.
“You seem,” said Wayne, “to be interested in military matters.”
“I am interested in nothing else,” answered the toy-shop keeper, simply.
Wayne appeared convulsed with a singular, suppressed excitement.
“In that case,” he said, “I may approach you with an unusual degree of confidence. Touching the matter of the defence of Notting Hill, I…”
“Defence of Notting Hill? Yes, sir. This way, sir,” said Turnbull, with great perturbation. “Just step into this side room;” and he led Wayne into another apartment, in which the table was entirely covered with an arrangement of children’s bricks. A second glance at it told Wayne that the bricks were arranged in the form of a precise and perfect plan of Notting Hill. “Sir,” said Turnbull, impressively, “you have, by a kind of accident, hit upon the whole secret of my life. As a boy, I grew up among the last wars of the world, when Nicaragua was taken and the dervishes wiped out. And I adopted it as a hobby, sir, as you might adopt astronomy or bird-stuffing. I had no ill-will to any one, but I was interested in war as a science, as a game. And suddenly I was bowled out. The big Powers of the world, having swallowed up all the small ones, came to that confounded agreement, and there was no more war. There was nothing more for me to do but to do what I do now…to read the old campaigns in dirty old newspapers, and to work them out with tin soldiers. One other thing had occurred to me. I thought it an amusing fancy to make a plan of how this district of ours ought to be defended if it were ever attacked. It seems to interest you too.”
“If it were ever attacked,” repeated Wayne, awed into an almost mechanical. enunciation. “Mr. Turnbull, it is attacked. Thank Heaven, I am bringing to at least one human being the news that is at bottom the only good news to any son of Adam. Your life has not been useless. Your work has not been play. Now, when the hair is already grey on your head, Turnbull, you shall have your youth. God has not destroyed it, He has only deferred it. Let us sit down here, and you shall explain to me this military map of Notting Hill. For you and I have to defend Notting Hill together.”
Mr. Turnbull looked at the other for a moment, then hesitated, and then sat down beside the bricks and the stranger. He did not rise again for seven hours, when the dawn broke.
… . .
The headquarters of Provost Adam Wayne and his Commander-in-Chief consisted of a small and somewhat unsuccessful milk-shop at the corner of Pump Street. The blank white morning had only just begun to break over the blank London buildings when Wayne and Turnbull were to be found seated in the cheerless and unswept shop. Wayne had something feminine in his character; he belonged to that class of persons who forget their meals when anything interesting is in hand. He had had nothing for sixteen hours but hurried glasses of milk, and, with a glass standing empty beside him, he was writing and sketching and dotting and crossing out with inconceivable rapidity with a pencil and a piece of paper. Turnbull was of that more masculine type in which a sense of responsibility increases the appetite, and with his sketch-map beside him he was dealing strenuously with a pile of sandwiches in a paper packet, and a tankard of ale from the tavern opposite, whose shutters had just been taken down. Neither of them spoke, and there was no sound in the living stillness except the scratching of Wayne’s pencil and the squealing of an aimless-looking cat. At length Wayne broke the silence by saying:
“Seventeen pounds, eight shillings and nine-pence.”
Turnbull nodded and put his head in the tankard.
“That,” said Wayne, “is not counting the five pounds you took yesterday. What did you do with it?”
“Ah, that is rather interesting!” replied Turnbull, with his mouth full. “I used that five pounds in a kindly and philanthropic act.”
Wayne was gazing with mystification in his queer and innocent eyes.
“I used that five pounds,” continued the other, “in giving no less than forty little London boys rides in hansom cabs.”
“Are you insane?” asked the Provost.
“It is only my light touch,” returned Turnbull. “These hansom-cab rides will raise the tone…raise the tone, my dear fellow…of our London youths, widen their horizon, brace their nervous system, make them acquainted with the various public monuments of our great city. Education, Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointed out that political reform is useless until we produce a cultured populace. So that twenty years hence, when these boys are grown up…”
“Mad!” said Wayne, laying down his pencil; “and five pounds gone!”
“You are in error,” explained Turnbull. “You grave creatures can never be brought to understand how much quicker work really goes with the assistance of nonsense and good meals. Stripped of its decorative beauties, my statement was strictly accurate. Last night I gave forty half-crowns to forty little boys, and sent them all over London to take hansom cabs. I told them in every case to tell the cabman to bring them to this spot. In half an hour from now the declaration of war will be posted up. At the same time the cabs will have begun to come in, you will have ordered out the guard, the little boys will drive up in state, we shall commandeer the horses for cavalry, use the cabs for barricade, and give the men the choice between serving in our ranks and detention in our basements and cellars. The little boys we can use as scouts. The main thing is that we start the war with an advantage unknown in all the other armies…horses. And now,” he said, finishing his beer, “I will go and drill the troops.”
And he walked out of the milk-shop, leaving the Provost staring.
A minute or two afterwards, the Provost laughed. He only laughed once or twice in his life, and then he did it in a queer way as if it were an art he had not mastered. Even he saw something funny in the preposterous coup of the half-crowns and the little boys. He did not see the monstrous absurdity of the whole policy and the whole war. He enjoyed it seriously as a crusade, that is, he enjoyed it far more than any joke can be enjoyed. Turnbull enjoyed it partly as a joke, even more perhaps as a reversion from the things he hated…modernity and monotony and civilization. To break up the vast machinery of modern life and use the fragments as engines of war, to make the barricade of omnibuses and points of vantage of chimneypots, was to him a game worth infinite risk and trouble. He had that rational and deliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life and a merry one.
CHAPTER III
THE EXPERIMENT OF MR. BUCK
AN earnest and eloquent petition was sent up to the King signed with the names of Wilson, Barker, Buck, Swindon and others. It urged that at the forthcoming conference to be held in his Majesty’s presence touching the final disposition of the property in Pump Street, it might be held not inconsistent with political decorum and with the unutterable respect they entertained for his Majesty if they appeared in ordinary morning dress, without the costume decreed for them as Provosts. So it happened that the company appeared at that council in frock-coats and that the King himself limited his love of cefemony to appearing (after his not unusual manner) in evening dress with one order…in this case not the Garter, but the button of the Club of Old Clipper’s Best Pals, a decoration obtained (with difficulty) from a halfpenny boy’s paper. Thus also it happened that the only spot of colour in the room was Adam Wayne, who entered in great dignity with the great red robes and the great sword.
“We have met,” said Auberon, “to decide the most arduous of modern problems. May we be successful.” And he sat down gravely.
Buck turned his chair a little and flung one leg over the other.
“Your majesty,” he said, quite good-humouredly, “there is only one thing I can’t understand, and that is why this affair is not settled in five minutes. Here’s a small property which is worth a thousand to us and is not worth a hundred to any one else. We offer the thousand. It’s not business-like, I know, for we ought to get it for less, and it’s not reasonable and it’s not fair on us, but I’m damned if I can see why it’s difficult.”
“The difficulty may be very simply stated,” said Wayne. “You may offer a million and it will be very difficult for you to get Pump Street.”
“But, look here, Mr. Wayne,” cried Barker, striking in with a kind of cold excitement. “Just look here. You’ve no right to take up a position like that. You’ve a right to stand out for a bigger price, but you aren’t doing that. You’re refusing what you and every sane man know to be a splendid offer simply from malice or spite…it must be malice or spite. And that kind of thing is really criminal; it’s against the public good; The King’s Government would be justified in forging you.”
With his lean fingers spread on the table he stared anxiously at Wayne’s face, which did not move.
“In forcing you … it would,” he repeated.
“It shall,” said Buck, shortly, turning to the table with a jerk. “We have done our best to be decent.”
Wayne lifted his large eyes slowly.
“Was it my Lord Buck,” he inquired, “who said that the King of England ‘shall’ do something?”
Buck flushed and said testily:
“I mean it must…it ought to, as I say we’ve done our best to be generous. I defy any one to deny it. As it is Mr. Wayne, I don’t want to say a word that’s uncivil. I hope it’s not uncivil to say that you can be, and ought to be, in gaol. It is criminal to stop public works for a whim. A man might as well burn ten thousand onions in his front garden or bring up his children to run naked in the street, as do what you say you have a right to do. People have been compelled to sell before now. The King could compel you, and I hope he will.”
“Until he does,” said Wayne, calmly, “the power and government of this great nation is on my side and not yours, and I defy you to defy it.”
“In what sense,” cried Barker, with his feverish eyes and hands, “is the Government on your side?”
With one ringing movement Wayne unrolled a great parchment on the table. It was decorated down the sides with wild water-colour sketches of vestrymen in crowns and wreaths.
“The Charter of the Cities,” he began.
Buck exploded in a brutal oath and laughed.
“That tomfool’s joke. Haven’t we had enough…”
“And there you sit,” cried Wayne, springing erect and with a voice like a trumpet, “with no argument but to insult the King before his face.”
Buck rose also with blazing eyes.
“I am hard to bully,” he began…and the slow tones of the King struck in with incomparable gravity:
“My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is present. It is not often that he needs to protect himself among his subjects.”
Barker turned to him with frantic gestures.
“For God’s sake don’t back up the madman now,” he implored. “Have your joke another time. Oh, for Heaven’s sake…”
“My Lord Provost of South Kensington,” said King Auberon, steadily. “I do not follow your remarks which are uttered with a rapidity unusual at Court. Nor do your well-meant efforts to convey the rest with your fingers materially assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of North Kensington, to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of his Sovereign to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign’s ordinances. Do you disagree?”
Barker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed without speaking. The King went on in a comfortable voice:
“My Lord Provost of Notting Hill, proceed.”
Wayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one’s surprise there was a look in them not of triumph, but of a certain childish distress.
“I am sorry, your Majesty,” he said; “I fear I was more than equally to blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. We were debating somewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our feet. I did so first, I am ashamed to say. The Provost of North Kensington is, therefore, comparatively innocent. I beseech your Majesty to address your rebuke chiefly, at least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did no doubt, in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the rest of the discussion he seems to me to have conducted with great good temper.”
Buck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all simple-minded, and have therefore that degree of communion with fanatics. The King, for some reason, looked, for the first time in his life, ashamed.
“This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill,” began Buck, pleasantly, “seems to me to show that we have at last got on to a friendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five hundred pounds have been offered to you for a property you admit not to be worth a hundred. Well, I am a rich man and I won’t be outdone in generosity. Let us say fifteen hundred pounds and have done with it. And let us shake hands.” And he rose, glowing and laughing.
“Fifteen hundred pounds,” whispered Mr. Wilson of Bayswater; “can we do fifteen hundred pounds?”
“I’ll stand the racket,” said Buck heartily. “Mr. Wayne is a gentleman and has spoken up for me. So I suppose the negotiations are at an end.”
Wayne bowed.
“They are indeed at an end. I am sorry I cannot sell you the property.”
“What?” cried Mr. Barker, starting to his feet.
“Mr. Buck has spoken correctly,” said the King.
“I have, I have,” cried Buck, springing up also; “I said…”
“Mr. Buck has spoken correctly,” said the King; “the negotiations are at an end.”
All the men at the table rose to their feet; Wayne alone rose without excitement.
“Have I, then,” he said, “your Majesty’s permission to depart? I have given my last answer.”
“You have it,” said Auberon, smiling, but not lifting his eyes from the table. And amid a dead silence the Provost of Notting Hill passed out of the room.
“Well?” said Wilson, turning round to Barker, “Well?”
Barker shook his head desperately.
“The man ought to be in an asylum,” he said. “But one thing is clear, we need not bother further about him. The man can be treated as mad.”
“Of course,” said Buck, turning to him with sombre decisiveness. “You’re perfectly right, Barker. He is a good enough fellow, but he can be treated as mad. Let’s put it in simple form. Go and tell any twelve men in any town, go and tell any doctor in any town, that there is a man offered fifteen hundred pounds for a thing he could sell commonly for four hundred, and that when asked for a reason for not accepting it he pleads the inviolate sanctity of Notting Hill and calls it the Holy Mountain. What would they say? What more can we have on our side than the common-sense of everybody? On what else do all laws rest? I’ll tell you, Barker, what’s better than any further discussion. Let’s send in workmen on the spot to pull down Pump Street. And if old Wayne says a word, arrest him as a lunatic. That’s all.”
Barker’s eyes kindled.
“I always regarded you, Buck, if you don’t mind my saying so, as a very strong man. I’ll follow you.”
“So, of course will I,” said Wilson.
Buck rose again impulsively.
“Your Majesty,” he said, glowing with popularity, “I beseech your Majesty to consider favourably the proposal to which we have committed ourselves. Your Majesty’s leniency, our own offers, have fallen in vain on that extraordinary man. He may be right. He may be God. He may be the devil. But we think it, for practical purposes, more probable that he is off his head. Unless that assumption were acted on, all human affairs would go to pieces. We act on it, and we propose to start operations in Notting Hill at once.”
The King leaned back in his chair.
“The Charter of the Cities…” he said with a rich intonation.
But Buck, being finally serious, was also cautious, and did not again make the mistake of disrespect.
“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing, “I am not here to say a word against anything your Majesty has said or done. You are a far better educated man than I, and no doubt there were reasons, upon intellectual grounds, for those proceedings. But may I ask you and appeal to your common good-nature for a sincere answer? When you drew up the Charter of the Cities did you contemplate the rise of a man like Adam Wayne? Did you expect that the Charter…whether it was an experiment, or a scheme of decoration, or a joke…could ever really come to this…to stopping a vast scheme of ordinary business, to shutting up a road, to spoiling the chances of cabs, omnibuses, railway stations, to disorganizing half a city, to risking a kind of civil war? Whatever were your objects, were they that?”
Barker and Wilson looked at him admiringly; the King more admiringly still.
“Provost Buck,” said Auberon, “you speak in public uncommonly well. I give you your point with the magnanimity of an artist. My scheme did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne. Alas! would that my poetic power had been great enough.”
“I thank your Majesty,” said Buck, courteously but quickly. “Your Majesty’s statements are always clear and studied: therefore I may draw a deduction. As the scheme, whatever it was, on which you set your heart did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne, it will survive his removal. Why not let us clear away this particular Pump Street, which does interfere with our plans, and which does not, by your Majesty’s own statement, interfere with yours.”
“Caught out!” said the King, enthusiastically and quite impersonally, as if he were watching a cricket match.
“This man Wayne,” continued Buck, “would be shut up by any doctors in England. But we only ask to have it put before them. Meanwhile no one’s interests, not even in all probability his own, can be really damaged by going on with the improvements in Notting Hill. Not our interests, of course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of ten years. Not the interest of Notting Hill, for nearly all its educated inhabitants desire the change. Not the interests of your Majesty, for you say, with characteristic sense, that you never contemplated the rise of the lunatic at all. Not, as I say, his own interests, for the man has a kind heart and many talents, and a couple of good doctors would probably put him righter than all the free cities and sacred mountains in creation. I therefore assume, if I may use so bold a word, that your Majesty will not offer any obstacle to our proceeding with the improvements.”
And Mr. Buck sat down amid subdued but excited applause among the allies.
“Mr. Buck,” said the King, “I beg your pardon, for a number of beautiful and sacred thoughts, in which you were generally classified as a fool. But there is another thing to be considered. Suppose you send in your workmen, and Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed, but of which I am sorry to say, I think him quite capable…knocks their teeth out.”
“I have thought of that, your Majesty,” said Mr. Buck, easily, “and I think it can simply be guarded against. Let us send in a strong guard of say a hundred men…a hundred Of the North Kensington Halberdiers” (he smiled grimly), “of whom your Majesty is so fond. Or say…a hundred and fifty. The whole population of Pump Street, I fancy, is only about a hundred.”
“Still they might stand together and lick you,” said the King, dubiously.
“Then say two hundred,” said Buck, gaily.
“It might happen,” said the King, restlessly, “that one Notting Hiller fought better than two, North Kensingtons.”
“It might,” said Buck, coolly; “then say two hundred and fifty.”
The King bit his lip.
“And if they are beaten, too,” he said viciously.
“Your Majesty,” said Buck, and leaned back easily in his chair. “Suppose they are. If anything be clear, it is clear that all fighting matters are mere matters of arithmetic. Here we have a hundred and fifty say of Notting Hill soldiers. Or say two hundred. If one of them can fight two of us…we can send in, not four hundred, but six hundred, and smash him. That is all. It is out of all immediate probability that one of them could fight four of us. So what I say is this. Run no risks. Finish it at once. Send in eight hundred men and smash him…smash him almost without seeing him. And go on with the improvements.”
And Mr. Buck pulled out a bandanna and blew his nose.
“Do you know, Mr. Buck,” said the King, staring gloomily at the table, “the admirable clearness of your reason produces in my mind a sentiment which I trust I shall not offend you by describing as an aspiration to punch your head. You irritate me sublimely. What can it be in me? Is it the relic of a moral sense?”
“But your Majesty,” said Barker, eagerly and suavely, “does not refuse our proposals?”
“My dear Barker, your proposals are as damnable as your manners. I want to have nothing to do with them. Suppose I stopped them altogether. What would happen?”
Barker answered in a very low voice:
“Revolution.”
The King glanced quickly at the men around the table. They were all looking down silently: their brows were red.
He rose with a startling suddenness, and an unusual pallor.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “you have overruled me. Therefore I can speak plainly. I think Adam Wayne, who is as mad as a hatter, worth more than a million of you. But you have the force, and, I admit, the common sense, and he is lost. Take your eight hundred halberdiers and smash him. It would be more sportsmanlike to take two hundred.”
“More sportsmanlike,” said Buck, grimly, “but a great deal less humane. We are not artists, and streets purple with gore do not catch our eye in the right way.”
“It is pitiful,” said Auberon. “With five or six times their number there will be no fight at all.”
“I hope not,” said Buck, rising and adjusting his gloves. “We desire no fight, your Majesty. We are peaceable business men.”
“Well,” said the King, wearily, “the conference is at an end at last.”
And he went out of the room before any one else could stir.
… . .
Forty workmen, a hundred Bayswater Halberdiers, two hundred from South, and three from North Kensington, assembled at the foot of Holland Walk and marched up it, under the general direction of Barker, who looked flushed and happy in full dress. At the end of the procession a small and sulky figure lingered like an urchin. It was the King.
“Barker,” he said at length, appealingly, “you are an old friend of mine…you understand my hobbies as I understand yours. Why can’t you let it alone? I hoped that such fun might come out of this Wayne business. Why can’t you let it alone? It doesn’t really so much matter to you…what’s a road or so? For me it’s the one joke that may save me from pessimism. Take fewer men and give me an hour’s fun. Really and truly, James, if you collected coins or humming-birds, and I could buy one with the price of your road, I would buy it. I collect incidents…those rare, those precious things. Let me have one. Pay a few pounds for it. Give these Notting Hillers a chance. Let them alone.”
“Auberon,” said Barker, kindly, forgetting all royal titles in a rare moment of sincerity, “I do feel what you mean. I have had moments when these hobbies have hit me. I have had moments when I have sympathized with your humours. I have had moments, though you may not easily believe it, when I have sympathized with the madness of Adam Wayne. But the world, Auberon, the real world, is not run on these hobbies. It goes on great brutal wheels of facts…wheels on which you are the butterfly. And Wayne is the fly on the wheel.”
Auberon’s eyes looked frankly at the other’s.
“Thank you, James; what you say is true. It is only a parenthetical consolation to me to compare the intelligence of flies, somewhat favourably with the intelligence of wheels. But it is the nature of flies to die soon, and the nature of wheels to go on for ever. Go on with the wheel. Good-bye, old man.”
And James Barker went on, laughing, with a high colour, slapping his bamboo on his leg.
The King watched the tail of the retreating regiment with a look of genuine depression, which made him seem more like a baby than ever. Then he swung round and struck his hands together.
“In a world without humour,” he said, “the only thing to do is to eat. And how perfect an exception! How can these people strike dignified attitudes, and pretend that things matter, when the total ludicrousness of life is proved by the very method by which it is supported? A man strikes the lyre, and says, ‘Life is real, life is earnest,’ and then goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into a hole in his head. I think Nature was indeed a little broad in her humour in these matters. But we all fall back on the pantomime, as I have in this municipal affair. Nature has her farces, like, the act of eating or the shape of the kangaroo, for the more brutal appetite. She keeps her stars and mountains for those who can appreciate something more subtly ridiculous.” He turned to his equerry. “But, as I said ‘eating,’ let us have a picnic like two nice little children. Just run and bring me a table and a dozen courses or so, and plenty of champagne, and under these swinging boughs, Bowler, we will return to Nature.”
It took about an hour to erect in Holland Lane the monarch’s simple repast, during which time he walked up and down and whistled, but still with an unaffected air of gloom. He had really been done out of a pleasure he had promised himself, and had that empty and sickened feeling which a child has when disappointed of a pantomime. When he and the equerry had sat down, however, and consumed a fair amount of dry champagne, his spirits began mildly to revive.
“Things take too long in this world,” he said. “I detest all this Barkerian business about evolution and the gradual modification of things. I wish the world had been made in six days, and knocked to pieces again in six more. And I wish I had done it. The joke’s good enough in a broad way, sun and moon and the image of God and all that, but they keep it up so damnably long. Did you ever long for a miracle, Bowler?”
“No, sir,” said Bowler, who was an evolutionist, and had been carefully brought up.
“Then I have,” answered the King. “I have walked along a street with the best cigar in the cosmos in my mouth, and more Burgundy inside me than you ever saw in your life, and longed that the lamp-post would turn into an elephant to save me from the hell of blank existence. Take my word for it, my evolutionary Bowler, don’t you believe people when they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed in miracles because they were ignorant. They did it because they were wise, filthily, vilely wise…too wise to eat or sleep or put on their boots with patience. This seems delightfully like a new theory of the origin of Christianity, which would itself be a thing of no mean absurdity. Take some more wine.”
The wind blew round them as they sat at their little table, with its white cloth and bright wine-cups, and flung the tree-tops of Holland Park against each other, but the sun was in that strong temper which turns green into gold. The King pushed away his plate, lit a cigar slowly, and went on:
“Yesterday I thought that something next door to a really entertaining miracle might happen to me before I went to amuse the worms. To see that red-haired maniac waving a great sword and making speeches to his incomparable followers, would have been a glimpse of that Land of Youth from which the Fates shut us out. I had planned some quite delightful things. A Congress of Knightsbridge with a treaty, and myself in the chair, and perhaps a Roman triumph, with jolly old Barker led in chains. And now these wretched prigs have gone and stamped out the exquisite Mr. Wayne altogether, and I suppose they will put him in a private asylum somewhere in their damned humane way. Think of the treasures daily poured out to his unappreciative keeper! I wonder whether they would let me be his keeper. But life is a vale. Never forget at any moment of your existence to regard it in the light of a vale. This graceful habit, if not acquired in youth…”
The King stopped, with his cigar lifted, for there had slid into his eyes the startled look of a man listening. He did not move for a few moments; then he turned his head sharply towards the high, thin, and lath-like paling which fenced certain long gardens and similar spaces from the lane. From behind it there was coming a curious scrambling and scraping noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box of thin wood. The King threw away his cigar and jumped on to the table. From this position he saw a pair of hands hanging with a hungry clutch on the top of the fence. Then the hands quivered with a convulsive effort, and a head shot up between them…the head of one of the Bayswater Town Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swung himself over, and fell on the other side on his face, and groaned openly and without ceasing. The next moment the thin, taut wood of the fence was struck as by a bullet, so that it reverberated like a drum, and over it came tearing and cursing, with torn clothes and broken nails and bleeding faces, twenty men at one rush. The King sprang five feet clear off the table on to the ground. The moment after the table was flung over, sending bottles and glasses flying, and the debris was literally swept along the ground by that stream of men pouring past, arid Bowler was borne along with them, as the King said in his famous newspaper article, “like a captured bride.” The great fence swung and split under the load of climbers that still scaled and cleared it. Tremendous gaps were torn in it by this living artillery; and through them the King could see more and more frantic faces, as in a dream, and more and more men running. They were as miscellaneous as if some one had taken the lid off a human dustbin. Some were untouched, some were slashed and battered and bloody, some were splendidly dressed, some tattered and half-naked, some were in the fantastic garb of the burlesque cities, some in the dullest modern dress. The King stared at all of them, but none of them looked at the King. Suddenly he stepped forward.
“Barker,” he said, “what is all this?”
“Beaten,” said the politician “beaten all to hell!” And he plunged past with nostrils shaking like a horse’s, and more and more men plunged after him.
Almost as he spoke, the last standing strip of fence bowed and snapped, flinging, as from a catapult, a new figure upon the road. He wore the flaming red of the halberdiers of Notting Hill, and on his weapon there was blood, and in his face victory. In another moment masses of red glowed through the gaps of the fence, and the pursuers, with their halberds, came pouring down the lane. Pursued and pursuers alike swept by the little figure with the owlish eyes, who had not taken his hands out of his pockets.
The King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man caught in a torrent…the feeling of men eddying by. Then something happened which he was never able afterwards to describe, and which we cannot describe for him. Suddenly in the dark entrance, between the broken gates of a garden, there appeared framed a flaming figure.
Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his mane like a lion’s, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of his office flapping round him like the red wings of an archangel. And the King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The great green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind. The sword seemed made for the sunlight. The preposterous masquerade, born of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This was the normal, this was sanity, this was nature; and he himself, with his rationality and his detachment and his black frock-coat, he was the exception and the accident…a blot of black upon a world of crimson and gold.
BOOK IV
CHAPTER I
THE BATTLE OF THE LAMPS
MR. BUCK, who, though retired, frequently went down to his big drapery stores in Kensington High Street, was locking up those premises, being the last to leave. It was a wonderful evening of green and gold, but that did not trouble him very much. If you had pointed it out, he would have agreed seriously, for the rich always desire to be artistic.
He stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light coat, and blowing great clouds from his cigar, when a figure dashed up to him in another yellow overcoat, but unbuttoned and flying behind him.
“Hullo, Barker!” said the draper. “Any of our summer articles? You’re too late. Factory Acts, Barker. Humanity and progress, my boy.”
“Oh, don’t chatter,” cried Barker, stamping. “We’ve been beaten.”
“Beaten…by what?” asked Buck, mystified.
“By Wayne.”
Buck looked at Barker’s fierce white face for the first time, as it gleamed in the lamplight.
“Come and have a drink,” he said.
They adjourned to a cushioned and glaring buffet, and Buck established himself slowly and lazily in a seat, and pulled out his cigar-case.
“Have a smoke,” he said.
Barker was still standing, and on the fret, but after a moment’s hesitation, he sat down, as if he might spring up again the next minute. They ordered drinks in silence.
“How did it happen?” asked Buck, turning his big bold eyes on him.
“How the devil do I know?” cried Barker. “It happened like…like a dream. How can two hundred men beat six hundred? How can they?”
“Well,” said Buck, coolly. “How did they? You ought to know.”
“I don’t know. I can’t describe,” said the other, drumming on the table. “It seemed like this. We were six hundred and marched with those damned poleaxes of Auberon’s…the only weapons we’ve got. We marched two abreast. We went up to Holland Walk, between the high palings which seemed to me to go straight as an arrow for Pump Street. I was near the tail of the line and it was a long one. When the end of it was still between the high palings, the head of the line was already crossing Holland Park Avenue. Then the head plunged into the network of narrow streets on the other side, and the tail and myself came out on the great crossing. When we also had reached northern side and turned up a small street that points, crookedly as it were, towards Pump Street, the whole thing felt different. The street dodged and bent so much that the head of our line seemed lost altogether: it might as well have been in North America. And all this time we hadn’t seen a soul.”
Buck, who was idly dabbing the ash of his cigar on the ash-tray, began to move it deliberately over the table, making feathery grey lines, a kind of map.
“But though the little streets were all deserted (which got a trifle on my nerves), as we got deeper and deeper into them, a thing began to happen that I couldn’t understand. Sometimes a long way ahead…three turns or corners ahead, as it were…there broke suddenly a sort of noise, clattering, and confused cries, and then stopped. Then, when it happened, something, I can’t describe it…a kind of shake or stagger went down the line, as if the line were a live thing, whose head had been struck, or had been an electric cord. None of us knew why we were moving, but we moved and jostled. Then we recovered, and went on through the little dirty streets, round corners, and up twisted ways. The little crooked streets began to give me a feeling I can’t explain…as if it were a dream. I felt as if things had lost their reason, and we should never get out of the maze. Odd to hear me talk like that, isn’t it? The streets were quite well-known streets, all down on the map. But the fact remains. I wasn’t afraid of something happening. I was afraid of nothing ever happening…nothing ever happening for all God’s eternity.”
He drained his glass and called for more whisky. He drank it and went on.
“And then something did happen. Buck, it’s the solemn truth, that nothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing had ever happened to me in my life.”
“Nothing ever happened!” said Buck, staring. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing has ever happened,” repeated Barker, with a morbid obstinacy. “You don’t know what a thing happening means? You sit in your office expecting customers, and customers come; you walk in the street expecting friends, and friends meet you; you want a drink and get it; you feel inclined for a bet and make it. You expect either to win or lose, and you do either one or the other. But things happening!” and he shuddered ungovernably.
“Go on,” said Buck, shortly. “Get on.”
“As we walked wearily round the corners, something happened. When something happens, it happens first, and you see it afterwards. It happens of itself, and you have nothing to do with it. It proves a dreadful thing…that there are other things besides one’s self. I can only put it in this way. We went round one turning, two turnings, three turnings, four turnings, five. Then I lifted myself slowly up from the gutter where I had been shot half senseless, and was beaten down again by living men crashing on top of me, and the world was full of roaring, and big men rolling about like ninepins.”
Buck looked at his map with knitted brows.
“Was that Portobello Road?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Barker. “Yes; Portobello Road…I saw it afterwards; but, my God…what a place it was! Buck, have you ever stood and let a six foot of a man lash and lash at your head with six feet of pole with six pounds of steel at the end? Because, when you have had that experience, as Walt Whitman says, ‘you re-examine philosophies and religions.’ ”
“I have no doubt,” said Buck. “If that was Portobello Road, don’t you see what happened?”
“I know what happened exceedingly well. I was knocked down four times; an experience which, as I say, has an effect on the mental attitude. And another thing happened, too. I knocked down two men. After the fourth fall (there was not much bloodshed…more brutal rushing and throwing…for nobody could use their weapons), after the fourth fall, I say, I got up like a devil, and I tore a poleaxe out of a man’s hand and struck where I saw the scarlet of Wayne’s fellows, struck again and again. Two of them went over, bleeding oh the stones, thank God…and I laughed and found myself sprawling in the gutter again, and got up again, and struck again, and broke my halberd to pieces. I hurt a man’s head, though.”
Buck set down his glass with a bang, and spat out curses through his thick moustache.
“What is the matter?” asked Barker, stopping, for the man had been calm up to now, and now his agitation was far more violent than his own.
“The matter?” said Buck, bitterly; “don’t you see how these maniacs have got us? Why should two idiots, one a clown and the other a screaming lunatic, make sane men so different from themselves? Look here, Barker; I will give you a picture. A very well-bred young man of this century is dancing about in a frock-coat. He has in his hands a nonsensical seventeenth century halberd, with which he is trying to kill men in the street in Notting Hill. Damn it! don’t you see how they’ve got us? Never mind how you felt…that is how you looked. The King would put his cursed head on one side and call it exquisite. The Provost of Notting Hill would put his cursed nose in the air and call it heroic. But in Heaven’s name what would you have called it…two days before?”
Barker bit his lip.
“You haven’t been through it, Buck,” he said. “You don’t understand fighting…the atmosphere.”
“I don’t deny the atmosphere,” said Buck, striking the table. “I only say it’s their atmosphere. It’s Adam Wayne’s atmosphere. It’s the atmosphere which you and I thought had vanished from an educated world for ever.”
“Well, it hasn’t,” said Barker; “and if you have any lingering doubts, lend me a poleaxe and I’ll show you.”
There was a long silence, and then Buck turned to his neighbour and spoke in that good-tempered tone that comes of a power of looking facts in the face; the tone in which he concluded great bargains.
“Barker,” he said, “you are right. This old thing…this fighting, has come back. It has come back suddenly and taken us by surprise. So it is first blood to Adam Wayne. But, unless reason and arithmetic and everything else have gone crazy, it must be next and last blood to us. But when an issue has really arisen, there is only one thing to do…to study that issue as such and win in it. Barker, since it is fighting, we must understand fighting. I must understand fighting as coolly and completely as I understand drapery; you must understand fighting as coolly and completely as you understand politics. Now, look at the facts. I stick without hesitation to my original formula. Fighting, when we have the stronger force, is only a matter of arithmetic. It must be. You asked me just now how two hundred men could defeat six hundred. I can tell you. Two hundred men can defeat six hundred when the six hundred behave like fools. When they forget the very conditions they are fighting in; when they fight in a swamp as if it were a mountain; when they fight in a forest as if it were a plain; when they fight in streets without remembering the object of streets.”
“What is the object of streets?” asked Barker.
“What is the object of supper?” cried Buck, furiously. “Isn’t it obvious? This military science is mere common sense. The object of a street is to lead from one place to another; therefore all streets join; therefore street fighting is quite a peculiar thing. You advanced into that hive of streets as if you were advancing into an open plain where you could see everything. Instead of that you were advancing into the bowels of a fortress, with streets pointing at you, streets turning on you, streets jumping out at you, and all in the hands of the enemy. Do you know what Portobello Road is? It is the only point on your journey where two side streets run up opposite each other. Wayne massed his men on the two sides, and when he had let enough of your line go past, cut it in two like a worm. Don’t you see what would have saved you?”
Barker shook his head.
“Can’t your ‘atmosphere’ help you?” asked Buck, bitterly. “Must I attempt explanations in the romantic manner? Suppose that, as you were fighting blindly with the red Notting Hillers who imprisoned you on both sides, you had heard a shout from behind them. Suppose, oh, romantic Barker! that behind the red tunics you had seen the blue and gold of South Kensington taking them in the rear, surrounding them in their turn and hurling them on to your halberds.”
“If the thing had been possible,” began Barker, cursing.
“The thing would have been as possible,” said Buck, simply; “as simple as arithmetic. There are a certain number of street entries that lead to Pump Street. There are not nine hundred; there are not nine million. They do not grow in the night. They do not increase like mushrooms. It must be possible with such an overwhelming force as we have to advance by all of them at once. In every one of the arteries, or approaches, we can put almost as many men as Wayne can put into the field altogether. Once do that and we have him to demonstration. It is like a proposition in Euclid.”
“You think that is certain,” said Barker, anxious but dominated delightfully.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Buck, getting up jovially. “I think Adam Wayne made an uncommonly spirited little fight. And I think I am confoundedly sorry for him.”
“Buck, you are a great man,” cried Barker, rising also. “You’ve knocked me sensible again. I am ashamed to say it, but I was getting romantic. Of course, what you say is adamantine sense. Fighting, being physical, must be mathematical. We were beaten because we were neither mathematical nor physical nor anything else…because we deserved to be beaten. Hold all the approaches, and with our force we must have him. When shall we open the next campaign?”
“Now,” said Buck, and walked out of the bar.
“Now!” cried Barker, following him eagerly. “Do you mean now? It is so late.”
Buck turned on him, stamping.
“Do you think fighting is under the Factory Acts?” he said. And he called a cab. “Notting Hill Gate Station,” he said, and the two drove off.
… . .
A genuine reputation can sometimes be made in an hour. Buck, in the next sixty or eighty minutes showed himself a really great man of action. His cab carried him like a thunderbolt from the King to Wilson, from Wilson to Swindon, from Swindon to Barker again; if his course was jagged, it had the jaggedness of the lightning. Only two things he carried with him, his inevitable cigar and the map of North Kensington and Notting Hill. There were, as he again and again pointed out, with every variety of persuasion and violence, only nine possible ways of approaching Pump Street within a quarter of a mile around it; three out of Westbourne Grove, two out of Ladbroke Grove, and four out of Notting Hill High Street. And he had detachments of two hundred each, stationed at every one of the entrances before the last green of that strange sunset had sunk out of the black sky.
The sky was particularly black, and on this alone was one false protest raised against the triumphant optimism of the Provost of North Kensington. He overruled it with his infectious common sense.
“There is no such thing,” he said, “as night in London. You have only to follow the line of street lamps. Look, here is the map. Two hundred purple North Kensington soldiers under myself march up Ossington Street, two hundred more under Captain Bruce, of the North Kensington Guard, up Clanricarde Gardens. [Clanricarde Gardens at this time was no longer a cul-de-sac, but was connected by Pump Street to Pembridge Square. See map.] Two hundred yellow West Kensingtons under Provost Swindon attack from Pembridge Road. Two hundred more of my men from the eastern streets, leading away from Queen’s Road. Two detachments of yellows enter by two roads from Westbourne Grove. Lastly, two hundred green Bayswaters come down from the North through Ghepstow Place, and two hundred more under Provost Wilson himself, through the upper part of Pembridge Road. Gentlemen, it is mate in two moves. The enemy must either mass in Pump Street and be cut to pieces…or they must retreat past the Gaslight & Coke Co…and rush on my four hundred…or they must retreat past St. Luke’s Church and rush on the six hundred from the West. Unless we are all mad, it’s plain. Come on. To your quarters and await Captain Brace’s signal to advance. Then you have only to walk up a line of gas-lamps and smash this nonsense by pure mathematics. To-morrow we shall be all civilians again.”
His optimism glowed like a great fire in the night, and ran round the terrible ring in which Wayne was now held helpless. The fight was already over. One’s man energy for one hour had saved the city from war.
For the next ten minutes Buck walked up and down silently beside the motionless clump of his two hundred. He had not changed his appearance in any way, except to sling across his yellow overcoat a case with a revolver in it. So that his light-clad modern figure showed up oddly beside the pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darkly but richly coloured the black night.
At length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; it was the signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, and the whole purple line, with its dimly shining steel, moved up the side alley. Before it was a slope of street, long, straight, and shining in the dark. It was a sword pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nine other swords were pointed that night.
A quarter of an hour’s silent marching brought them almost within earshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But still there was no sound and no sign of the enemy. This time, at any rate, they knew that they were closing in on it mechanically, and they marched on under the lamplight and the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorance which Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one avenue alone.
“Halt…point arms!” cried Buck, suddenly, and as he, spoke there came a clatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds were levelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from the contingent of the North.
“Victory, Mr. Buck!” he cried, panting, “they are ousted. Provost Wilson of Bayswater has taken Pump Street.”
Buck ran forward in his excitement.
“Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by St. Luke’s to meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet us. Run like mad to Swindon and see that the yellows are holding the St. Luke’s Road. We will hold this, never fear. We have them in an iron trap. Run!”
As the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great guard of North Kensington swung on with the certainty of a machine. Yet scarcely a hundred yards further their halberd points again fell in line gleaming in the gaslight. For again a clatter of feet was heard on the stones, and again it proved to be only the messenger.
“Mr. Provost,” he said, “the yellow West Kensingtons have been holding the road by St. Luke’s for twenty minutes since the capture of Pump Street. Pump Street is not two hundred yards away, they cannot be retreating down that road.”
“Then they are retreating down this!” said Provost Buck, with a final cheerfulness, “and by good fortune down a well-lighted road, though it twists about. Forward!”
As they moved along the last three hundred yards of their journey, Buck fell, for the first time in his life, perhaps, into a kind of philosophical reverie, for men of his type are always made kindly, and as it were melancholy, by success.
“I am sorry for poor old Wayne, I really am,” he thought. “He spoke up splendidly for me at that Council. And he blacked old Barker’s eye with considerable spirit. But I don’t see what a man can expect when he fights against arithmetic, to say nothing of civilization. And what a wonderful hoax all this military genius is. I suspect I’ve just discovered what Cromwell discovered, that a sensible tradesman is the best general, and that a man who can buy men and sell men can lead and kill them. The thing’s simply like adding up a column in a ledger. If Wayne has two hundred men, he can’t put two hundred men in nine places at once. If they’re ousted from Pump Street they’re flying somewhere. If they’re not flying past the church they’re flying past the Works. And so we have them. We business men should have no chance at all except that cleverer people than we get bees in their bonnets that prevent them from reasoning properly…so we reason alone. And so I, who am comparatively stupid, see things as God sees them, as a vast machine. My God, what’s this?” And he clapped his hands to his eyes and staggered back.
Then through the darkness he cried in a dreadful voice:
“Did I blaspheme God?…I am struck blind.”
“What?” wailed another voice behind him, the voice of a certain Wilfred Jarvis of North Kensington.
“Blind!” cried Buck; “blind!”
“I’m blind, too!” cried Jarvis, in an agony.
“Fools, all of you,” said a gross voice behind them; “we’re all blind. The lamps have gone out.”
“The lamps…but why? where?” cried Buck, turning furiously in the darkness. “How are we to get on? How are we to chase the enemy? Where have they gone?”
“The enemy went…” said the rough voice behind, and then stopped, doubtfully.
“Where?” shouted Buck, stamping like a madman.
“They went,” said the gruff voice, “past the Gas Works, and they’ve used their chance.”
“Great God!” thundered Buck, and snatched at his revolver; “do you mean they’ve turned out…”
But almost before he had spoken the words, he was hurled like a stone from a catapult into the midst of his own men.
“Notting Hill! Notting Hill!” cried frightful voices out of the darkness, and they seemed to come from all sides, for the men of North Kensington, unacquainted with the road, had lost all their bearings in the black world of blindness.
“Notting Hill! Notting Hill!” cried the invisible people, and the invaders were hewn down horribly with black steel, with steel that gave no glint against any light.
… . .
Buck, though badly maimed with the blow of a halberd, kept an angry but splendid sanity. He groped madxy for the wall and found it. Struggling with crawling fingers along it, he found a side opening and retreated into it with the remnants of his men. Their adventures during that prodigious night are not to be described. They did not know whether they were going towards or away from the enemy. Not knowing where they themselves were, or where their opponents were, it was mere irony to ask where was the rest of their army. For a thing had descended upon them which London does not know…darkness, which was before the stars were made, and they were as much lost in it as if they had been made before the stars. Every now and then, as those frightful hours wore on, they buffetted in the darkness against living men, who struck at them and at whom they struck, with an idiot fury. When at last the grey dawn came, they found they had wandered back to the edge of the Uxbridge Road. They found that in those horrible eyeless encounters, the North Kensingtons and the Bayswaters and the West Kensingtons had again and again met and butchered each other, and they heard that Adam Wayne was barricaded in Pump Street.
CHAPTER II
THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE “COURT JOURNAL”
JOURNALISM had become like most other such things in England, under the cautious government and philosophy represented by James Barker, somewhat sleepy and much diminished in importance. This was partly due to the disappearance of party government and public speaking, partly to the compromise or deadlock which had made foreign wars impossible, but mostly, of course, to the temper of the whole nation, which was that of a people in a kind of back-water. Perhaps the most well-known of the remaining newspapers was the Court Journal, which was published in a dusty but genteel looking office just out of Kensington High Street. For when all the papers of a people have been for years growing more and more dim and decorous and optimistic, the dimmest and most decorous and most optimistic is very likely to win. In the journalistic competition which was still going on at the beginning of the twentieth century, the final victor was the Court Journal.
For some mysterious reason the King had a great affection for hanging about in the Court Journal office, smoking a morning cigarette and looking over files. Like all ingrainedly idle men, he was very fond of lounging and chatting in places where other people were doing work. But one would have thought that, even in the prosaic England of his day, he might have found a more bustling centre.
On this particular morning, however, he came out of Kensington Palace with a more alert step and a busier air than usual. He wore an extravagantly long frock-coat, a pale-green waistcoat, a very full and degage black tie, and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform as Colonel of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. It was a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked quickly across the Park and the High Street, lighting his cigarette as he went, and flung open the door of the Court Journal office.
“You’ve heard the news, Pally…you’ve heard the news?” he said.
The Editor’s name was Hoskins, but the King called him Pally, which was an abbreviation of Paladium of our Liberties.
“Well, your Majesty,” said Hoskins, slowly (he was a worried, gentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown beard) “…well, your Majesty, I have heard rather curious things, but I…”
“You’ll hear more of them,” said the King, dancing a few steps of a kind of negro shuffle. “You’ll hear more of them, my blood-and-thunder tribune. Do you know what I am going to do for you?”
“No, your Majesty,” replied the Paladium, vaguely.
“I’m going to put your paper on strong, dashing, enterprising lines,” said the King. “Now, where are your posters of last night’s defeat?”
“I did not propose, your Majesty,” said the Editor, “to have any posters exactly…”
“Paper, paper!” cried the King, wildly; “bring me paper as big as a house. I’ll do you posters. Stop, I must take my coat off.” He began removing that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfully at Mr. Hoskins’ head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himself in the glass. “The coat off,” he said, “and hat on. That looks like a sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing. Well,” he continued, turning round abruptly, “come along with that paper.”
The Paladium had only just extricated himself reverently from the folds of the King’s frock-coat, and said bewildered:
“I am afraid, your Majesty…”
“Oh, you’ve got no enterprise,” said Auberon. “What’s that roll in the corner? Wall-paper? Decorations for your private residence? Art in the home, Pally? Fling it over here, and I’ll paint such posters on the back of it that when you put it up in your drawing-room you’ll paste the original pattern against the wall.” And the King unrolled the wall-paper, spreading it over, the whole floor. “Now give me the scissors,” he cried and took them himself before the other could stir.
He slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big as a door. Then he took a big blue pencil and went down on his knees on the dusty oil-cloth, and began to write on them, in huge letters:
“FROM THE FRONT. GENERAL BUCK DEFEATED. DARKNESS, DANGER, AND DEATH. WAYNE SAID TO BE IN PUMP STREET. FEELING IN THE CITY.”
He contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, and got up, with a sigh.
“Not quite intense enough,” he said…not alarming. “I want the Court Journal to be feared as well as loved. Let’s try something more hard-hitting.” And he went down on his knees again. After sucking the blue pencil for some time, he began writing again busily. “How will this do?” he said:
“WAYNE’S WONDERFUL VICTORY.”
“I suppose,” he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking the pencil “I suppose we couldn’t say ‘wictory’…’Wayne’s wonderful wictory’? No, no. Refinement, Pally, refinement. I have it.”
“WAYNE WINS. ASTOUNDING FIGHT IN THE DARK. The gas-lamps in their courses fought against Buck.”
“(Nothing like our fine old English translation.) What else can we say? Well, anything to annoy old Buck;” and he added, thoughtfully, in smaller letters:
“Rumoured Court-martial on General Buck.”
“Those will do for the present,” he said, and turned them both face downwards. “Paste, please.”
The Paladium, with an air of great terror, brought the paste out of an inner room.
The King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing with treacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions fluttering in each hand, he ran outside, and began pasting them up in prominent positions over the front of the office.
“And now,” said Auberon, entering again with undiminished vivacity “now for the leading article.”
He picked up another of the large strips of wall-paper, and, laying it across a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began writing with feverish intensity, reading clauses and fragments aloud to himself, and rolling them on his tongue like wine, to see if they had the pure journalistic flavour.
“The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, awful as it is, awful as it is… (no, distressing as it is), may do some good if it draws attention to the what’s-his-name inefficiency (scandalous inefficiency, of course) of the Government’s preparations. In our present state of information, it would be premature (what a jolly word!)… it would be premature to cast any reflections upon the conduct of General Buck, whose services upon so many stricken fields (ha, ha!), and whose honourable scars and laurels give him a right to have judgment upon him at least suspended. But there is one matter on which we must speak plainly. We have been silent on it too long, from feelings, perhaps of mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty. This situation would never have arisen but for what we can only call the indefensible conduct of the King. It pains us to say such things, but, speaking as we do in the public interests (I plagiarize from Barker’s famous epigram), we shall not shrink because of the distress we may cause to any individual, even the most exalted. At this crucial moment of our country, the voice of the People demands with a single tongue, ‘Where is the King?’ What is he doing while his subjects tear each other in pieces in the streets of a great city? Are his amusements and his dissipations (of which we cannot pretend to be ignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no thought for a perishing nation? It is with a deep sense of our responsibility that we warn that exalted person that neither his great position nor his incomparable talents will save him in the hour of delirium from the fate of all those who, in the madness of luxury or tyranny, have met the English people in the rare day of its wrath.”
“I am now,” said the King, “going to write an account of the battle by an eye-witness.” And he picked up a fourth sheet of wall-paper. Almost at the same moment Buck strode quickly into the office. He had a bandage round his head.
“I was told,” he said with his usual gruff civility, “that your Majesty was here.”
“And of all things on earth,” cried the King, with delight, “here is an eye-witness! An eyewitness who, I regret to observe, has at present only one eye to witness with. Can you write us the special article, Buck? Have you a rich style?”
Buck, with a self-restraint which almost approached politeness, took no notice whatever of the King’s maddening geniality.
“I took the liberty, your Majesty,” he said shortly, “of asking Mr. Barker to come here also.”
As he spoke, indeed, Barker came swinging into the office, with his usual air of hurry.
“What is happening now?” asked Buck, turning to him with a kind of relief.
“Fighting still going on,” said Barker. “The four hundred from West Kensington were hardly touched last night. They hardly got near the place. Poor Wilson’s Bayswater men got cut about, though. They fought confoundedly well. They took Pump Street once. What mad things do happen in the world. To think that of all of us it should be little Wilson with the red whiskers who came put best.”
The King made a note on his paper:
“Romantic Conduct of Mr. Wilson.”
“Yes,” said Buck, “it makes one a bit less proud of one’s ‘h’s.’ ”
The King suddenly folded or crumpled up the paper, and put it in his pocket.
“I have an idea,” he said. “I will be an eyewitness. I will write you such letters from the Front as will be more gorgeous than the real thing. Give me my coat, Paladium. I entered this room a mere King of England. I leave it, Special War Correspondent of the Court Journal. It is useless to stop me, Pally; it is vain to cling to my knees, Buck; it is hopeless, Barker, to weep upon my neck. ‘When duty calls’… the remainder of the sentiment escapes me. You will receive my first article this evening by the eight o’clock post.”
And, running out of the office, he jumped upon a blue Bayswater omnibus that went swinging by.
“Well,” said Barker, gloomily, “well.”
“Barker,” said Buck, “business may be lower than politics, but war is, as I discovered last night, a long sight more like business. You politicians are such ingrained demagogues that even when you have a despotism you think of nothing but public opinion. So you learn to tack and run, and are afraid of the first breeze. Now we stick to a thing and get it. And our mistakes help us. Look here! at this moment we’ve beaten Wayne.”
“Beaten Wayne,” repeated Barker.
“Why the dickens not?” cried the other, flinging out his hands. “Look here. I said last night that we had them by holding the nine entrances. Well, I was wrong. We should have had them but for a singular event…the lamps went out. But for that it was certain. Has it occurred to you, my brilliant Barker, that another singular event has happened since that singular event of the lamps going out?”
“What event?” asked Barker.
“By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen,” cried out Buck, with a savage air of patience. “Why the hell aren’t we holding all those approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should have been done at sunrise. The confounded doctor wouldn’t let me go out. You were in command.”
Barker smiled grimly.
“It is a gratification to me, my dear Buck, to be able to say that we anticipated your suggestions precisely. We went as early as possible to reconnoitre the nine entrances. Unfortunately, while we were fighting each other in the dark, like a lot of drunken navvies, Mr. Wayne’s friend’s were working very hard indeed. Three hundred yards from. Pump Street, at every one of those entrances, there is a barricade nearly as high as the houses. They were finishing the last, in Pembridge Road, when we arrived. Our mistakes,” he cried bitterly, and flung his cigarette on the ground. “It is not we who learn from them.”
There was a silence for a few moments, and Barker lay back wearily in a chair. The office clock ticked exactly in the stillness.
At length Barker said suddenly:
“Buck, does it ever cross your mind what this is all about? The Hammersmith to Maida Vale thoroughfare was an uncommonly good speculation. You and I hoped a great deal from it. But is it worth it? It will cost us thousands to crush this ridiculous riot. Suppose we let it alone?”
“And be thrashed in public by a red-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up?” cried out Buck, starting to his feet. “What do you propose to do, Mr. Barker? To apologize to the admirable Mr. Wayne? To kneel to the Charter of the Cities? To clasp to your bosom the flag of the Red Lion? To kiss in succession every sacred lamp-post that saved Notting Hill? No, by God! My men fought jolly well…they were beaten by a trick. And they’ll fight again.”
“Buck,” said Barker, “I always admired you. And you were quite right in what you said the other day.”
“In what?”
“In saying,” said Barker, rising quietly, “that we had all got into Adam Wayne’s atmosphere and out of our own. My friend, the whole territorial kingdom of Adam Wayne extends to about nine streets, with barricades at the end of them. But the spiritual kingdom of Adam Wayne extends, God knows where…it extends to this office at any rate. The red-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up is filling this room with his roaring, unreasonable soul. And it was the red-haired madman who said the last word you spoke.”
Buck walked to the window without replying.
“You understand, of course,” he said at last, “I do not dream of giving in.”
… . .
The King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his blue omnibus. The traffic of London as a whole had not, of course, been greatly disturbed by these events, for the affair was treated as a Notting Hill riot, and that area was marked off as if it had been in the hands of a gang of recognized rioters. The blue omnibuses simply went round as they would have done if a road were being mended, and the omnibup on which the correspondent of the Court Journal was sitting swept round the corner of Queen’s Road, Bayswater.
The King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was enjoying the speed at which it was going.
“Forward, my beauty, my Arab,” he said, patting the omnibus encouragingly, “fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy relations with thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin and his steed? Does he sleep side by side with thee…”
His meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring stopage. Looking over the edge, he saw that the heads of the horses were being held by men in the uniform of Wayne’s army, and heard the voice of an officer calling out orders.
King Auberon descended from the omnibus with dignity. The guard or picket of red halberdiers who had stopped the vehicle did not number more than twenty, and they were under the command of a short, dark, clever-looking young man, conspicuous among the rest as being clad in an ordinary frock-coat, but girt round the waist with a red sash and a long seventeenth-century sword. A shiny silk hat and spectacles completed the outfit in a pleasing manner.
“To whom have I the honour of speaking?” said the King, endeavouring to look like Charles I, in spite of personal difficulties.
The dark man in spectacles lifted his hat with equal gravity.
“My name is Bowles,” he said. “I am a chemist. I am also a captain of O company of the army of Notting Hill. I am distressed at having to incommode you by stopping the omnibus, but this area is covered by our proclamation, and we intercept all traffic. May I ask to whom I have the honour…Why, good gracious, I beg your Majesty’s pardon. I am quite overwhelmed at finding myself concerned with the King.”
Auberon put up his hands with indescribable grandeur.
“Not with the King,” he said; “with the special war correspondent of the Court Journal.”
“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” began Mr. Bowles, doubtfully.
“Do you call me Majesty? I repeat,” said Auberon firmly, “I am a representative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep sense of responsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire a veil to be drawn over the past.”
“Very well, sir,” said Mr. Bowles, with an air of submission, “in our eyes the sanctity of the press is at least as great as that of the throne. We desire nothing better than that our wrongs and our glories should be widely known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have any objection to being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?”
“The Provost I have had the honour of meeting,” said Auberon, easily. “We old journalists, you know, meet everybody. I should be most delighted to have the same honour again. General Turnbull, also, it would be a gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting. We of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them.”
“Will you be so good as to step this way?” said the leader of O company.
“I am always good,” said Mr. Pinker. “Lead on.”
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT ARMY OF SOUTH KENSINGTON
THE article from the special correspondent of the Court Journal arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King’s arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at first as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, “Try American style,” and the fragment began:
“The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very…;” and then broke off, followed by the note, “Good sound journalism safer. Try it.”
The experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin:
“The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any…”
This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almost undecipherable, but seemed to be something like:
“How about old Steevens and the mot juste? E.g. …”
“Morning winked a little wearily at me over the cult edge of Campden Hill and its houses with their sharp shadows. Under the abrupt black cardboard of the outline, it took some little time to detect colours; but at length I saw a brownish yellow shifting in the obscurity, and I knew that it was the guard of Swindon’s West Kensington army. They are being held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above the Bayswater Road. Their camp and their main force is under the great water works tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say that the water works tower looked swart.
“As I passed them and came over the curve of Silver Street, I saw the blue cloudy masses of Barker’s men blocking the entrance to the highroad like a sapphire smoke (good). The disposition of the allied troops, under the general management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be as follows…The Yellow Army (if I may so describe the West Kensingtonians) lies, as I have said, hi a strip along the ridge; its furthest point westward being the west side of Campden Hill Road, its furthest point eastward the beginning of Kensington Gardens. The Green Army of Wilson lines the Notting Hill High Road itself from Queen’s Road to the corner of Pembridge Road, curving round the latter, and extending some three hundred yards up towards Westbourne Grove. Westbourne Grove itself is occupied by Barker of South Kensington. The fourth side of this rough square, the Queen’s Road side, is held by some of Buck’s Purple warriors.
“The whole resembles some ancient and dainty Dutch flower-bed. Along the crest of Campden Hill lie the golden crocuses of West Kensington. They are, as it were, the first fiery fringe of the whole. Northward lies our hyacinth Barker, with all his blue hyacinths. Round to the south-west run the green rushes of Wilson of Bayswater, and a line of violet irises (aptly symbolized by Mr. Buck) complete the whole. The argent exterior… (I am losing the style. I should have said ‘Curving with a whisk’ instead of merely ‘Curving.’ Also I should have called the hyacinths ‘sudden.’ I cannot keep this up. War is too rapid for this style of writing. Please ask the office-boy to insert mots justes.)
“The truth is that there is nothing to report. That commonplace element which is always ready to devour all beautiful things (as the Black Pig in the Irish Mythology will finally devour the stars and gods); that commonplace element, as I say, has in its Black Piggish way devoured finally the chances of any romance in this affair; that which once consisted of absurd but thrilling combats in the streets, has degenerated into something which is the very prose of warfare…it has degenerated into a siege. A siege may be defined as a peace plus the inconvenience of war. Of course Wayne cannot hold out. There is no more chance of help from anywhere else than of ships from the moon. And if old Wayne had stocked his street with tinned meats till all his garrison had to sit on them, he couldn’t hold out for more than a month or two. As a matter of melancholy fact he has done something rather like this. He has stocked his street with food until there must be uncommonly little room to turn round. But what is the good? To hold out for all that time and then to give in of necessity, what does it mean? It means waiting until your victories are forgotten and then taking the trouble to be defeated. I cannot understand how Wayne can be so inartistic.
“And how odd it is that one views a thing quite differently when one knows it is defeated. I always thought Wayne was rather fine. But now, when I know that he is done for, there seems to be nothing else but Wayne. All the streets seem to point at him, all the chimneys seem to lean towards him. I suppose it is a morbid feeling; but Pump Street seems to be the only part of London that I feel physically. I suppose, I say, that it is morbid. I suppose it is exactly how a man feels about his heart when his heart is weak. ‘Pump Street‘“the heart is a pump. And I am drivelling.
“Our finest leader at the front is beyond all question, General Wilson. He has adopted alone among the other Provosts the uniform of his own halberdiers, although that fine old sixteenth-century garb was not originally intended to go with red side-whiskers. It was he who, against a most admirable and desperate defence, broke last night into Pump Street and held it for at least half an hour. He was afterwards expelled from it by General Turnbull, of Notting Hill, but only after desperate fighting and the sudden descent of that terrible darkness which proved so much more fatal to the forces of General Buck and General Swindon.
“Provost Wayne himself, with whom I had, with great good fortune, a most interesting interview, bore the most eloquent testimony to the conduct of General Wilson and his men. His precise words are as follows: ‘I have bought sweets at his funny little shop when I was four years old, and ever since. I never noticed anything, I am ashamed to say, except that he talked through his nose, and didn’t wash himself particularly. And he came over our barricade like a devil from hell.’ I repeated this speech to General Wilson himself, with some delicate improvements, and he seemed pleased with it. He does not, however, seem pleased with anything so much just now as he is with the wearing of a sword. I have it from the front on the best authority that General Wilson was not completely shaved yesterday. It is believed in military circles that he is growing a moustache…
“As I have said, there is nothing to report. I walk wearily to the pillar-box at the corner of Pembridge Road to post my copy. Nothing whatever has happened, except the preparations for a particularly long and feeble siege, during which I trust I shall not be required to be at the Front. As I glance up Pembridge Road in the growing dusk, the aspect of that road reminds me that there is one note worth adding. General Buck has suggested, with characteristic acumen, to General Wilson, that in order to obviate the possibility of such a catastrophe as overwhelmed the allied forces in the last advance on Notting Hill (the catastrophe, I mean, of the extinguished lamps), that each soldier should have a lighted lantern round his neck. This is one of the things which I really admire about General Buck. He possesses what people used to mean by ‘the humility of the man of science,’ that is, he learns steadily from his mistakes. Wayne may score off him in some other way, but not in that way. The lanterns look like fairy lights as they curve round the end of Pembridge Road.
“Later… I write with some difficulty, because the blood will run down my face and make patterns on the paper. Blood is a very beautiful thing; that is why it is concealed. If you ask me why blood runs down my face, I can only reply that I was kicked by a horse. If you ask me what horse, I can reply with some pride that it was a war-horse. If you ask me how a war-horse came on the scene in our simple pedestrian warfare, I am reduced to the necessity, so painful to a special correspondent, of recounting my experiences.
“I was, as I have said, in the very act of posting my copy at the pillar-box, and of glancing as I did so up the glittering curve of Pembridge Road, studded with the lights of Wilson’s men. I don’t know what made me pause to examine the matter, but I had a fancy that the line of lights, where it melted into the indistinct brown twilight, was more indistinct than usual. I was almost certain that in a certain stretch of the road where there had been five lights there were now only four. I strained my eyes; I counted them again, and there were only three. A moment after there were only two; an instant after only one; and an instant after that the lanterns near to me swung like jangled bells, as if struck suddenly. They flared and fell; and for the moment the fall of them was like the fall of the sun and stars out of heaven. It left everything in a primal blindness. As a matter of fact, the road was not yet legitimately dark. There were still red rays of a sunset in the sky, and the brown gloaming was still warmed, as it were, with a feeling as of firelight. But for three seconds after the lanterns swung and sank, I saw in front of me a blackness blocking the sky. And with the fourth second I knew that this blackness which blocked the sky was a man on a great horse; and I was trampled and tossed aside as a swirl of horsemen swept round the corner. As they turned I saw that they were not black but scarlet; they were a sortie of the besieged, Wayne riding ahead.
“I lifted myself from the gutter, blinded with blood from a very slight skin-wound, and, queerly enough, not caring either for the blindness or for the slightness of the wpund. For one mortal minute after that amazing cavalcade had spun past, there was dead stillness on the empty road. And then came Barker and all his halberdiers running like devils in the track of them. It had been their business to guard the gate by which the sortie had broken out; but they had not reckoned, and small blame to them, on cavalry. As it was, Barker and his men made a perfectly splendid run after them, almost catching Wayne’s horses by the tails.
“Nobody can understand the sortie. It consists only of a small number of Wayne’s garrison. Turnbull himself, with the vast mass of it, is undoubtedly still barricaded in Pump Street. Sorties of this kind are natural enough in the majority of historical sieges, such as the siege of Paris in 1870, because in such cases the besieged are certain of some support outside. But what can be the object of it in this case? Wayne knows (or if he is too mad to know anything, at least Turnbull knows) that there is not, and never has been, the smallest chance of support for him outside; that the mass of the sane modern inhabitants of London regard his farcical patriotism with as much contempt as they do the original idiotcy that gave it birth…the folly of our miserable King. What Wayne and his horsemen are doing nobody can even conjecture. The general theory round here is that he is simply a traitor, and has abandoned the besieged. But all such larger but yet more soluble riddles are as nothing compared to the one small but unanswerable riddle: Where did they get the horses?
“Later… I have heard a most extraordinary account of the origin of the appearance of the horses. It appears that that amazing person, General Turnbull, who is now ruling Pump Street in the absence of Wayne, sent out, on the morning of the declaration of war, a vast number of little boys (or cherubs of the gutter, as we pressmen say), with half-crowns in their pockets, to take cabs all over London. No less than a hundred and sixty cabs met at Pump Street; were commandeered by the garrison. The men were set free, the cabs used to make barricades, and the horses kept in Pump Street, where they were fed and exercised for several days, until they were sufficiently rapid and efficient to be used for this wild ride out of the town. If this is so, and I have it on the best possible authority, the method of the sortie is explained. But we have no explanation of its object. Just as Barker’s Blues were swinging round the corner after them, they were stopped, but not by an enemy; only by the voice of one man, and he a friend. Red Wilson of Bayswater ran alone along the main road like a madman waving them back with a halberd snatched from a sentinel. He was in supreme command, and Barker stopped at the corner, staring and bewildered. We could hear Wilson’s voice loud and distinct out of the dusk, so that it seemed strange that the great voice should come out of the little body. ‘Halt, South Kensington! Guard this entry, and prevent them returning. I will pursue. Forward, the Green Guards!’
“A wall of dark blue uniforms and a wood of pole-axes was between me and Wilson, for Barker’s men blocked the mouth of the road in two rigid lines. But through them and through the dusk I could hear the clear orders and the clank of arms, and see the green army of Wilson marching by towards the west. They were our great fighting-men. Wilson had filled them with his own fire; in a few days they had become veterans. Each of them wore a silver medal of a pump, to boast that they alone of all the allied armies had stood victorious in Pump Street.
“I managed to slip past the detachment of Barker’s Blues, who are guarding the end of Pembridge Road, and a sharp spell of running brought me to the tail of Wilson’s green army as it swung down the road in pursuit of the flying Wayne. The dusk had deepened into almost total darkness; for some time I only heard the throb of the marching pace. Then suddenly there was a cry, and the tall fighting men were flung back on me, almost crushing me, and again the lanterns swung and jingled and the cold nozzles of great horses pushed into the press of us. They had turned and charged us.
“‘You fools!’ came the voice of Wilson, cleaving our panic with a splendid cold anger; ‘Don’t you see? the horses have no riders!’
“It was true. We were being plunged at by a stampede of horses with empty saddles. What could it mean? Had Wayne met some of our men and been defeated? Or had he flung these horses at us as some kind of ruse or mad new mode of warfare, such as he seemed bent on inventing? Or did he and his men want to get away in disguise? Or did they want to hide in houses somewhere?
“Never did I admire any man’s intellect (even my own) so much as I did Wilson’s at that moment. Without a word, he simply pointed the halberd (which he still grasped) to the southern side of the road. As you know, the streets running up to the ridge of Campden Hill from the main road are peculiarly steep, they are more like sudden flights of stairs. We were just opposite Aubrey Road, the steepest of all; up that it would have been far more difficult to urge half-trained horses than to run up on one’s feet.
“‘Left wheel!’ hallooed Wilson. ‘They have gone up here,’ he added to me, who happened to be at his elbow.
“‘Why?’ I ventured to ask.
“‘Can’t say for certain,’ replied the Bayswater General. ‘They’ve gone up here in a great hurry anyhow. They’ve simply turned their horses loose, because they couldn’t take them up. I fancy I know. I fancy they’re trying to get over the ridge to Kensington or Hammersmith, or somewhere, and are striking up here because it’s just beyond the end of our line. Damned fools, not to have gone further along the road, though. They’ve only just shaved our last outpost. Lambert is hardly four hundred yards from here. And I’ve sent him word.’
“‘Lambert!’ I said. ‘Not young Wilfrid Lambert…my old friend.’
“‘Wilfrid Lambert’s his name,’ said the General; ‘used to be a “man about town”; silly fellow with a big nose. That kind of man always volunteers for some war or other. And what’s funnier, he generally isn’t half bad at it, Lambert is distinctly good. The yellow West Kensingtons I always reckoned the weakest part of the army; but he has pulled them together uncommonly well, though he’s subordinate to Swindon, who’s a donkey. In the attack from Pembridge Road the other night he showed great pluck.’
“‘He has shown greater pluck than that,’ I said. ‘He has criticized my sense of humour. That was his first engagement.’
“This remark was, I am sorry to say, lost on the admirable commander of the allied forces. We were in the act of climbing the last half of Aubrey Road, which is so abrupt a slope that it looked like an old-fashioned map leaning up against the wall. There are lines of little trees, one above the other, as in the old-fashioned map.
“We reached the top of it, panting somewhat, and were just about to turn the corner by a place called (in chivalrous anticipation of our wars of sword and axe) Tower Crecy, when we were suddenly knocked in the stomach (I can use no other term) by a horde of men hurled back upon us. They wore the red uniform of Wayne; their halberds were broken; their foreheads bleeding; but the mere impetus of their retreat staggered us as we stood at the last ridge of the slope,
“‘Good old Lambert!’ yelled out, suddenly, the stolid Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, in an uncontrollable excitement. ‘Damned Jolly old Lambert! He’s got there already! He’s driving them back on us! Hurrah! hurrah! Forward the Green Guards!’
“We swung round the corner eastwards, Wilson running first, brandishing the halberd.
“Will you pardon a little egotism? Every one likes a little egotism, when it takes the form, as mine does in this case, of a disgraceful confession. The thing is really a little interesting, because it shows how the merely artistic habit has bitten into men like me. It was the most intensely exciting occurrence that had ever come to me in my life; and I was really intensely excited about it. And yet, as we turned that corner, the first impression I had was of something that had nothing to do with the fight at all. I was stricken from the sky as by a thunderbolt, by the height of the Waterworks Tower on Campden Hill. I don’t know whether Londoners generally realize how high it looks when one comes out, in this way, almost immediately under it. For the second it seemed to me that at the foot of it even human war was a triviality. For the second I felt as if I had been drunk with some trivial orgie, and that I had been sobered by the shock of that shadow. A moment afterwards, I realized that under it was going on something more enduring than stone, and something wilder than the dizziest height…the agony of man. And I knew that compared to that, this overwhelming tower was itself a triviality; it was a mere stalk of stone which humanity could snap like a stick.
“I don’t know why I have talked so much about this silly old Waterworks Tower, which at the very best was only a tremendous background. It was that, certainly, a sombre and awful landscape, against which our figures were relieved. But I think the real reason was, that there was in my own mind so sharp a transition from the tower of stone to the man of flesh. For what I saw first when I had shaken off, as it were, the shadow of the tower, was a man, and a man I knew.
“Lambert stood at the further corner of the street that curved round the tower, his figure outlined in some degree by the beginning of moonrise. He looked magnificent, a hero; but he looked something much more interesting than that. He was, as it happened, in almost precisely the same swaggering attitude in which he had stood nearly fifteen years ago, when he swung his walking-stick and struck it into the ground, and told me that all my subtlety was drivel. And, upon my soul, I think he required more courage to say that than to fight as he does now. For then he was fighting against something that was in the ascendant, fashionable, and victorious. And now he is fighting (at the risk of his life, no doubt) merely against something which is already dead, which is impossible, futile; of which nothing has been more impossible and futile than this very sortie which has brought him into contact with it. People nowadays allow infinitely too little for the psychological sense of victory as a factor in affairs. Then he was attacking the degraded but undoubtedly victorious Quin; now he is attacking the interesting but totally extinguished Wayne.
“His name recalls me to the details of the scene. The facts were these. A line of red halberdiers, headed by Wayne, were marching up the street, close under the northern wall, which is, in fact, the bottom of a sort of dyke or fortification of the Waterworks. Lambert and his yellow West Kensingtons had that instant swept round the corner and had shaken the Waynites heavily, hurling back a few of the more timid, as I have just described, into our very arms. When our force struck the tail of Wayne’s, every one knew that all was up with him. His favourite military barber was struck down. His grocer was stunned. He himself was hurt in the thigh, and reeled back against the wall. We had him in a trap with two jaws. ‘Is that you?’ shouted Lambert, genially, to Wilson, across the hemmed-in host of Notting Hill. ‘That’s about the ticket,’ replied General Wilson; ‘keep them under the wall.’
“The men of Notting Hill were falling fast. Adam Wayne threw up his long arms to the wall above him, and with a spring stood upon it, a gigantic figure against the moon. He tore the banner put of the hands of the standard-bearer below him, and shook it out suddenly above our heads, so that it was like thunder in the heavens.
“‘Round the Red Lion!’ he cried. ‘Swords round the Red Lion! Halberds round the Red Lion! They are the thorns round the rose.’
“His voice and the crack of the banner made a momentary rally, and Lambert, whose idiotic face was almost beautiful with battle, felt it as by an instinct, and cried”
“‘Drop your public-house flag, you footler! Drop it!’
“‘The banner of the Red Lion seldom stoops,’ said Wayne, proudly, letting it out luxuriantly on the night wind.
“The next moment I knew that poor Adam’s sentimental theatricality had cost him much. Lambert was on the wall at a bound, his sword in his teeth, and had slashed at Wayne’s head before he had time to draw his sword, his hands being busy with the enormous flag. He stepped back only just in time to avoid the first cut, and let the flag-staff fall, so that the spear-blade at the end of it pointed to Lambert.
“‘The banner stoops,’ cried Wayne, in a voice that must have startled streets. ‘The banner of Notting Hill stoops to a hero.’ And with the words he drove the spear-point and half the flag-staff through Lambert’s body and dropped him dead upon the road below, a stone upon the stones of the street.
“‘Notting Hill! Notting Hill!’ cried Wayne, in a sort of divine rage. ‘Her banner is all the holier for the blood of a brave enemy! Up on the wall, patriots! Up on the wall! Notting Hill!’
“With his long strong arm he actually dragged a man up on to the wall to be silhouetted against the moon, and more and more men climbed up there, pulled themselves and were pulled, till clusters and crowds of the half-massacred men of Pump Street massed upon the wall above us.
“‘Notting Hill! Notting Hill!’ cried Wayne, unceasingly.
“‘Well, what about Bayswater?’ said a worthy working-man in Wilson’s army, irritably. ‘Bayswater for ever!’
“‘We have won!’ cried Wayne, striking his flag-staff in the ground. ‘Bayswater for ever! We have taught our enemies patriotism!’
“‘Oh, cut these fellows up and have done with it!’ cried one of Lambert’s lieutenants, who was reduced to something bordering on madness by the responsibility of succeeding to the command.
“‘Let us by all means try,’ said Wilson, grimly; and the two armies closed round the third.
”… . .
“I simply cannot describe what followed. I am sorry, but there is such a thing as physical fatigue, as physical nausea, and, I may add, as physical terror. Suffice it to say that the above paragraph was written about 11 p.m., and that it is now about 2 a.m., and that the battle is not finished, and is not likely to be. Suffice it further to say that down the steep streets which lead from the Waterworks Tower to the Notting Hill High Road, blood has been running, and is running, in great red serpents, that curl out into the main thoroughfare and shine in the moon.
“Later… The final touch has been given to all this terrible futility. Hours have passed; morning has broken; men are still swaying and fighting at the foot of the tower and round the corner of Aubrey Road; the fight has not finished. But I know it is a farce.
“News has just come to show that Wayne’s amazing sortie, followed by the amazing resistance through a whole night on the wall of the Waterworks, is as if it had not been. What was the object of that strange exodus we shall probably never know, for the simple reason that every one who knew will probably be cut to pieces in the course of the next two or three hours.
“I have heard, about three minutes ago, that Buck and Buck’s methods have won after all. He was perfectly right, of course, when one comes to think of it, in holding that it was physically impossible for a street to defeat a city. While we thought he was patrolling the eastern gates with his Purple army; while we were rushing about the streets and waving halberds and lanterns; while poor old Wilson was scheming like Moltke and fighting like Achilles to entrap the wild Provost of Notting Hill…Mr. Buck, retired draper, has simply driven down in a hansom cab and done something about as plain as butter and about as useful and nasty. He has gone down to South Kensington, Brompton, and Fulham, and by spending about four thousand pounds of his private means, has raised an army of nearly, as many men; that is to say, an army big enough to beat, not only Wayne, but Wayne and all his present enemies put together. The army, I understand, is encamped along High Street, Kensington, and fills it from the Church to Addison Road Bridge. It is to advance by ten different roads uphill to the north.
“I cannot endure to remain here. Everything makes it worse than it need be. The dawn, for instance, has broken round Campden Hill; splendid spaces of silver, edged with gold, are torn out of the sky. Worse still, Wayne and his men feel the dawn; their faces, though bloody and pale, are strangely hopeful… insupportably pathetic. Worst of all, for the moment they are winning. If it were not for Buck and the new army they might just, and only just, win.
“I repeat, I cannot stand it. It is like watching that wonderful play of old Maeterlinck’s (you know my partiality for the healthy, jolly old authors of the nineteenth century), in which one has to watch the quiet conduct of people inside a parlour, while knowing that the very men are outside the door whose word can blast it all with tragedy. And this is worse, for the men are not talking, but writhing and bleeding and dropping dead for a thing that is already settled…and settled against them. The great grey masses of men still toil and tug and sway hither and thither around the great grey tower; and the tower is still motionless, as it will always be motionless. These men will be crushed before the sun is set; and new men will arise and be crushed, and new wrongs done, and tyranny will always rise again like the sun, and injustice will always be as fresh as the flowers of spring. And the stone tower will always look down on it. Matter, in its brutal beauty, will always look down on those who are mad enough to consent to die, and yet more mad, since they consent to live.”
Thus ended abruptly the first and last contribution of the Special Correspondent of the Court Journal to that valued periodical.
The Correspondent himself, as has been said, was simply sick and gloomy at the last news of the triumph of Buck. He slouched sadly down the steep Aubrey Road, up which he had the night before run in so unusual an excitement, and strolled out into the empty dawn-lit main road, looking vaguely for a cab. He saw nothing in the vacant space except a blue-and-gold glittering thing, running very fast, which looked at first like a very tall beetle, but turned out, to his great astonishment, to be Barker.
“Have you heard the good news?” asked that gentleman.
“Yes,” said Quin, with a measured voice. “I have heard the glad tidings of great joy. Shall we take a hansom down to Kensington? I see one over there.”
They took the cab, and, were, in four minutes, fronting the ranks of the multitudinous and invincible army. Quin had not spoken a word all the way, and something about him had prevented the essentially impressionable Barker from speaking either.
The great army, as it moved up Kensington High Street, calling many heads to the numberless windows, for it was long indeed…longer than the lives of most of the tolerably young…since such an army had been seen in London. Compared with the vast organization which was now swallowing up the miles, with Buck at its head as leader, and the King hanging at its tail as journalist, the whole story of our problem was insignificant. In the presence of that army the red Notting Hills and the green Bayswaters were alike tiny and straggling groups. In its presence the whole struggle round Pump Street was like an ant-hill under the hoof of an ox. Every man who felt or looked at that infinity of men knew that it was the triumph of Buck’s brutal arithmetic. Whether Wayne was right or wrong, wise or foolish, was quite a fair matter for discussion. But it was a matter of history. At the foot of Church Street, opposite Kensington Church, they paused in their glowing good humour.
“Let us send some kind of messenger or herald up to them,” said Buck, turning to Barker and the King. “Let us send and ask them to cave in without more muddle.”
“What shall we say to them?” said Barker, doubtfully.
“The facts of the case are quite sufficient,” rejoined Buck. “It is the facts of the case that make an army surrender. Let us simply say that our army that is fighting their army, and their army that is fighting our army, amount altogether to about a thousand men. Say that we have four thousand. It is very simple. Of the thousand fighting, they have at the very most, three hundred, so that, with those three hundred, they have now to fight four thousand seven hundred men. Let them do it if it amuses them.”
And the Provost of North Kensington laughed.
The herald who was dispatched up Church Street in all the pomp of the South Kensington blue and gold, with the Three Birds on his tabard, was attended by two trumpeters.
“What will they do when they consent?” asked Barker, for the sake of saying something in the sudden stillness of that immense army.
“I know my Wayne very well,” said Buck, laughing. “When he submits he will send a red herald flaming with the Lion of Notting Hill. Even defeat will be delightful to him, since it is formal and romantic.”
The King, who had strolled up to the head of the line, broke silence for the first time.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, “if he defied you, and didn’t send the herald after all. I don’t think you do know your Wayne quite so well as you think.”
“All right, your Majesty,” said Buck, easily; “if it isn’t disrespectful, I’ll put my political calculations in a very simple form. I’ll lay you ten pounds to a shilling the herald comes with the surrender.”
“All right,” said Auberon. “I may be wrong, but it’s my notion of Adam Wayne that he’ll die in his city, and that, till he is dead, it will not be a safe property.”
“The bet’s made, your Majesty,” said Buck.
Another long silence ensued, in the course of which Barker alone, amid the motionless army, strolled and stamped in his restless way.
Then Buck suddenly leant forward.
“It’s taking your money, your Majesty,” he said. “I knew it was. There comes the herald from Adam Wayne.”
“It’s not,” cried the King, peering forward also. “You brute, it’s a red omnibus.”
“It’s not,” said Buck, calmly; and the King did not answer, for down the centre of the spacious and silent Church Street was walking, beyond question, the herald of the Red Lion, with two trumpeters.
Buck had something in him which taught him how to be magnanimous. In his hour of success he felt magnanimous towards Wayne, whom he really admired; magnanimous towards the King, off whom he had scored so publicly; and, above all, magnanimous towards Barker, who was the titular leader of this vast South Kensington army, which his own talent had evoked.
“General Barker,” he said, bowing, “do you propose now to receive the message from the besieged?”
Barker bowed also, and advanced towards the herald.
“Has your master, Mr. Adam Wayne, received our request for surrender?” he asked.
The herald conveyed a solemn and respectful affirmative.
Barker resumed, coughing slightly, but encouraged.
“What answer does your master send?”
The herald again inclined himself submissively, and answered in a kind of monotone.
“My message is this. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, under the charter of King Auberon and the laws of God and all mankind, free and of a free city, greets James Barker, Lord High Provost of South Kensington, by the same rights free and honourable, leader of the army of the South. With all friendly reverence, and with all constitutional consideration, he desires James Barker to lay down his arms, and the whole army under his command to lay down their arms also.”
Before the words were ended the King had run forward into the open space with shining eyes. The rest of the staff and the forefront of the army were literally struck breathless. When they recovered they began to laugh beyond restraint; the revulsion was too sudden.
“The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill,” continued the herald, “does not propose, in the event of your surrender, to use his victory for any of those repressive purposes which others have entertained against him. He will leave you your free laws and your free cities, your flags and your governments. He will not destroy the religion of South Kensington, or crush the old customs of Bayswater.”
An irrepressible explosion of laughter went up from the fore front of the great army.
“The King must have had something to do with this humour,” said Buck, slapping his thigh. “It’s too deliciously insolent. Barker, have a glass of wine.”
And in his conviviality he actually sent a soldier across to the restaurant opposite the church and brought out two glasses for a toast.
When the laughter had died down, the herald continued quite monotonously:
“In the event of your surrendering your arms and dispersing under the superintendence ot our forces, these local rights of yours shall be carefully observed. In the event of your not doing so, the Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires to announce that he has just captured the Waterworks Tower, just above you, on Campden Hill, and that within ten minutes from now, that is, on the reception through me of your refusal, he will open the great reservoir and flood the whole valley where you stand in thirty feet of water. God save King Auberon!”
Buck had dropped his glass and sent a great splash of wine over the road.
“But…but…” he said; and then by a last and splendid effort of his great sanity, looked the facts in the face.
“We must surrender,” he said. “You could do nothing against fifty thousand tons of water coming down a steep hill, ten minutes hence. We must surrender. Our four thousand men might as well be four. Vicisti Galilae! Perkins, you may as well get me another glass of wine.”
In this way the vast army of South Kensington surrendered and the Empire of Notting Hill began. One further fact in this connection is perhaps worth mentioning…the fact that, after his victory, Adam Wayne caused the great tower on Campden Hill to be plated with gold and inscribed with a great epitaph, saying that it was the monument of Wilfrid Lambert, the heroic defender of the place, and surmounted with a statue, in which his large nose was done something less than justice to.
BOOK V
CHAPTER I
THE EMPIRE OF NOTTING HILL
ON the evening of the third of October, twenty years after the great victory of Notting Hill, which gave it the dominion of London, King Auberon, came, as of old, out of Kensington Place.
He had changed little, save for a streak or two of grey in his hair, for his face had always been old, and his step slow, and, as it were, decrepit.
If he looked old, it was not because of anything physical or mental. It was because he still wore, with a quaint conservatism, the frock-coat and high hat of the days before the great war. “I have survived the Deluge,” he said. “I am a pyramid, and must behave as such.”
As he passed up the street the Kensingtonians in their picturesque blue smocks, saluted him as a King, and then looked after him as a curiosity. It seemed odd to them that men had once worn so elvish an attire.
The King, cultivating the walk attributed to the oldest inhabitant (“Gaffer Auberon” his friends were now confidentially desired to call him), went toddling northward. He paused, with reminiscence in his eye, at the Southern Gate of Notting Hill, one of those nine great gates of bronze and steel, wrought with reliefs of the old battles, by the hand of Chiffy himself.
“Ah!” he said, shaking his head and assuming an unnecessary air of age, and a provincialism of accent, “Ah! I mind when there warn’t none of this here.”
He passed through the Ossington Gate, surmounted by a great lion, wrought in red copper on yellow brass, with the motto, “Nothing Ill.” The guard in red and gold saluted him with his halberd.
It was about sunset, and the lamps were being lit. Auberon paused to look at them, for they were Chiffy’s finest work, and his artistic eye never failed to feast on them. In memory of the Great Battle of the Lamps, each great iron lamp was surmounted by a veiled figure, sword in hand, holding over the flame an iron hood or extinguisher, as if ready to let it fall if the armies of the South and West should again show their flags in the city. Thus no child in Notting Hill could play about the streets without the very lamp-posts reminding him of the salvation of his country in the dreadful year.
“Old Wayne was right in a way,” commented the King. “The sword does make things beautiful. It has made the whole world romantic by now. And to think people once thought me a buffoon for suggesting a romantic Notting Hill. Deary me, deary me (I think that is the expression). It seems like a previous existence.”
Turning a corner he found himself in Pump Street, opposite the four shops which Adam Wayne had studied twenty years before. He entered idly the shop of Mr. Mead, the grocer. Mr. Mead was somewhat older, like the rest of the world, and his red beard, which he now wore with a moustache, and long and full, was partly blanched and discoloured. He was dressed in a long and richly embroidered robe of blue, brown, and crimson, interwoven with an Eastern complexity of pattern, and covered with obscure symbols and pictures, representing his wares passing from hand to hand and from nation to nation. Round his neck was the chain with the Blue Argosy cut in turquoise, which he wore as Grand Master of the Grocers. The whole shop had the sombre and sumptuous look of its owner. The wares were displayed as prominently as in the old days, but they were now blended and arranged with a sense of tint and grouping, too often neglected by the dim grocers of those forgotten days. The wares were shown plainly, but shown not so much as an old grocer would have shown his stock, but rather as an educated virtuoso would have shown his treasures. The tea was stored in great blue and green vases, inscribed with the nine indispensable sayings of the wise men of China. Other vases of a confused orange and purple, less rigid and dominant, more humble and dreamy, stored symbolically the tea of India. A row of caskets of a simple silvery metal contained tinned meats. Each was wrought with some rude but rhythmic form, as a shell, a horn, a fish, or an apple, to indicate what material had been canned in it. “Your Majesty,” said Mr. Mead, sweeping an Oriental reverence. “This is an honour to me, but yet more an honour to the city.”
Auberon took off his hat.
“Mr. Mead,” he said, “Notting Hill, whether in giving or taking, can deal in nothing but honour. Do you happen to sell liquorice?”
“Liquorice, sire,” said Mr. Mead, “is not the least important of our benefits out of the dark heart of Arabia.”
And going reverently towards a green and silver canister, made in the form of an Arabian mosque, he proceeded to serve his customer.
“I was just thinking, Mr. Mead,” said the King reflectively, “I don’t know why I should think about it just now, but I was just thinking of twenty years ago. Do you remember the times before the war?”
The grocer, having wrapped up the liquorice sticks in a piece of paper (inscribed with some appropriate sentiment), lifted his large grey eyes dreamily, and looked at the darkening sky outside.
“Oh yes, your Majesty,” he said. “I remember these streets before the Lord Provost began to rule us. I can’t remember how we felt very well. All the great songs and the fighting change one so; and I don’t think we can really estimate all we owe to the Provost; but I can remember his coming into this very shop twenty-two years ago, and I remember the things he said. The singular thing is that as far as I remember I thought the things he said odd at that time. Now it’s the things that I said, as far as I can recall them, that seem to me odd…as odd as a madman’s antics.”
“Ah!” said the King; and looked at him with an unfathomable quietness.
“I thought nothing of being a grocer then,” he said. “Isn’t that odd enough for anybody? I thought nothing of all the wonderful places that my goods came from, and wonderful ways that they are made. I did not know that I was for all practical purposes a king with slaves spearing fishes near the secret-pool, and gathering fruits in the islands under the world. My mind was a blank on the thing. I was as mad as a hatter.”
The King turned also, and stared out into the dark, where the great lamps that commemorated the battle were already flaming.
“And is this the end of poor old Wayne?” he said, half to himself. “To inflame every one so much that he is lost himself in the blaze; Is this his victory, that he, my incomparable Wayne, is now only one in a world of Waynes? Has he conquered and become by conquest commonplace? Must Mr. Mead, the grocer, talk as high as he? Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad.”
And he went dreamily out of the shop.
He paused outside the next one almost precisely as the Provost had done two decades before.
“How uncommonly creepy this shop looks,” he said. “But yet somehow encouragingly creepy, invitingly creepy. It looks like something in a jolly old nursery story in which you are frightened out of your skin, and yet know that things always end well. The way those low sharp gables are carved like great black bat’s wings folded down, and the way those queer-coloured bowls underneath are made to shine like giant’s eyeballs. It looks like a benevolent warlock’s hut. It is apparently a chemist’s.”
Almost as he spoke, Mr. Bowles, the chemist, came to his shop door in a long black velvet gown and hood, monastic as it were, but yet with a touch of the diabolic. His hair was still quite black, and his face even paler than of old. The only spot of colour he carried was a red star cut in some precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. He belonged to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded on the lamps displayed by doctors and chemists.
“A fine evening, sir,” said the chemist. “Why, I can scarcely be mistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. Pray step inside and share a bottle of sal-volatile, or anything that my take your fancy. As it happens there is an old acquaintance of your Majesty’s in my shop carousing (if I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage at this moment.”
The King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin’s garden of shades and hues, for as the chemist’s scheme of colour was more brilliant than the grocer’s scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy and fancy. Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay of medicines been presented to the artistic eye.
But even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was rivalled or even eclipsed by the figure standing in the centre of the shop. His form, which was a large and stately one, was clad in a brilliant blue velvet, cut in the richest Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as to show gleams and gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He had several chains round his neck and his plumes, which were of several tints, of bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt of his long sword. He was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, and admiring its opal tint. The King advanced with a slight mystification towards the tall figure, whose face was in shadow, then he said:
“By the Great Lord of Luck, Barker!”
The figure, removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark head and long, almost equine, face which the King had so often seen rising out of the high collar of Bond Street. Except for a grey patch on each temple, it was totally unchanged.
“Your Majesty,” said Barker, “this is a meeting nobly retrospective, a meeting that has about it a certain October gold. I drink to old days;” and he finished his sal-volatile with simple feeling.
“I am delighted to see you again, Barker,” said the King. “It is, indeed, long since we met. What with my travels in Asia Minor, and my book having to be written (you have read my ‘Life of Prince Albert for Children,’ of course), we have scarcely met twice since the Great War. That is twenty years ago.”
“I wonder,” said Barker, thoughtfully, “if I might speak freely to your Majesty.”
“Well,” said Auberon, “it’s rather late in the day to start speaking respectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom.”
“Well, your Majesty,” replied Barker, lowering his voice, “I don’t think it will be so long to the next war.”
“What do you mean?” asked Auberon.
“We will stand this insolence no longer,” burst out Barker, fiercely. “We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years ago cheated us with a water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting Hill; it is not the world. We in South Kensington, we also have memories…aye, and hopes. If they fought for these trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we not fight for the great High Street and the sacred Natural History Museum?”
“Great Heavens!” said the astounded Auberon. “Will wonders never cease? Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? Have you turned altruistic, and has Wayne turned selfish? Are you the patriot, and he the tyrant?”
“It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil comes,” answered Barker. “He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped in dreams, and sits with his old sword beside the fire. But Notting Hill is the tyrant, your Majesty. Its Council and its crowds have been so intoxicated by the spreading over the whole city of Wayne’s old ways and visions, that they try to meddle with every one, and rule every one, and civilize every one, and tell every one what is good for him. I do not deny the great impulse which his old war, wild as it seemed, gave to the civic life of our time. It came when I was still a young man, and I admit it enlarged my career. But we are not going to see our own cities flouted and thwarted from day to day because of something Wayne did for us all nearly a quarter of a century ago. I am just waiting here for news upon this very matter. It is rumoured that Notting Hill has vetoed the statue of General Wilson they are putting up opposite Chepstow Place. If that is so, it is a black and white shameless breach of the terms of which we surrendered to Turnbull after the battle of the Tower. We were to keep our own customs and self-government. If that is so…”
“It is so,” said a deep voice; and both men turned round.
A burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung round his neck and moustaches almost as florid as his plumes, stood in the doorway.
“Yes,” he said, acknowledging the King’s start, “I am Provost Buck, and the news is true. These men of the Hill have forgotten that we fought round the Tower as well as they did, and that it is sometimes foolish, as well as base, to despise the conquered.”
“Let us step outside,” said Barker, with a grim composure.
Buck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the lamp-lit street.
“I would like to have a go at smashing all this,” he muttered, “though I am over sixty. I would like…”
His voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with his hands to his eyes, as he had done in those streets twenty years before.
“Darkness!” he cried “darkness again! What does it mean?”
For in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that they could not see even each other’s outline, except faintly. The voice of the chemist came with startling cheerfulness out of the density.
“Oh, don’t you know?” he said. “Did they never tell you this is the Feast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great battle that almost lost and just saved Notting Hill? Don’t you know, your Majesty, that on this night twenty-one years ago we saw Wilson’s green uniforms charging down this street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back upon the gas-works, fighting with their handful of men like fiends from hell? And that then, in that great hour, Wayne sprang through a window of the gas-works, with one blow of his hand brought darkness on the whole city, and then with a cry like a lion’s, that was heard through four streets, flew at Wilson’s men, sword in hand, and swept them, bewildered as they were, and ignorant of the map, clear out of the sacred street again? And don’t you know that upon that night every year all lights are turned out for half an hour while we sing the Notting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! there it begins.”
Through the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong swell of human voices:
“When the world was in the balance, there was night on Notting Hill,
(There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the day;
On the cities where the lights are and the firesides glow,
From the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did not know,
Came the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on the foe,
And the old guard of God turned to bay.
For the old guard of God turns to bay, turns to bay,
And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall to-day.
For when armies were around us as a howling and a horde,
When falling was the citadel and broken was the sword,
The darkness came upon them like the Dragon of the Lord,
When the old guard of God turned to bay.”
The voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse, when they were stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had bounded into the street with a cry of “South Kensington!” and a drawn dagger. In less time than man could blink, the whole packed street was full of curses and struggling. Barker was flung back against the shop-front, but used the second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, and calling out, “This is not the first time I’ve come through the thick of you,” flung himself again into the press. It was evident that he had drawn blood at last, for a more violent outcry arose, and many other knives and sworlds were discernible in the faint light. Barker, after having wounded more than one man, seemed on the point of being flung back again, when Buck suddenly stepped out into the street. He had no weapon, for he affected rather the peaceful magnificence of the great burgher, than the pugnacious dandyism which had replaced the old sombre dandyism in Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist he broke the pane of the next shop, which was the old curiosity shop, and, plunging in his hand, snatched a kind of Japanese scimitar, and calling out, “Kensington! Kensington!” rushed to Barker’s assistance.
Barker’s sword was broken, but he was laying about him with his dagger. Just as Buck ran up, a man of Hotting Hill struck Barker down, but Buck struck the man down on top of him, and Barker sprang up again, the blood running down his face.
Suddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that seemed to fall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and Barker and the King from its seeming to come out the empty skies; but it was more terrible because it was a familiar voice, and one which at the same time they had not heard for so long.
“Turn up the lights,” said the voice from above them, and for a moment there was no reply, but only a tumult.
“In the name of Notting Hill, and of the great Council of the City, turn up the lights.”
There was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then the whole street and every object in it sprang suddenly out of the darkness, as every lamp sprang into life. And looking up they saw, standing upon a balcony near the roof of one of the highest houses, the figure and the face of Adam Wayne, his red hair blowing behind him, a little streaked with grey.
“What is this, my people?” he said. “Is it altogether impossible to make a thing good without it immediately insisting on being wicked? The glory of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, has been enough for me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside the fire. Is it really not enough for you, who have had so many other affairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Why should it condescend to be a mere Empire? You wish to pull down the statue of General Wilson, which the men of Bayswater have so rightly erected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? Did Bayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see that it is the glory of our achievement that we have infected the other cities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It is we who have created not only our own side, but both sides of this controversy. O too humble fools…why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You have done something more to them. You have created your enemies. You wish to pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like an obelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! Before Notting Hill arose, did any person passing through Hammersmith Broadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You wish to abolish the great bronze figure of a knight standing upon the artificial bridge at Knightsbridge. Fools! Who would have thought of it before Notting Hill arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain I have heard it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been cast towards the remote horizon of the west, and that we have objected to the great black monuments of a crowned raven, which commemorates the skirmish of Ravenscourt Park. Who created all these things? Were they there before we came? Cannot you be content with that destiny which was enough for Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the humble purpose of creating a new world. Is Athens angry because Romans and Florentines have adopted her phraseology for expressing their own patriotism? Is Nazareth angry because as a little village it has become the type of all little villages out of which, as the Snobs say, no good can come? Has Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys? Are all followers of the Nazarene compelled to wear turbans? No! but the soul of Athens went forth and made men drink hemlock, and the soul of Nazareth went forth and made men consent to be crucified. So has the soul of Notting Hill gone forth and made men realize what it is to live in a city. Just as we inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, so they have inaugurated theirs; and are you so mad as to contend against them? Notting Hill is right; it has always been right. It has moulded itself on its own necessities, its own sine qua non, it has accepted its own ultimatum. Because it is a nation it has created itself. And because it is a nation it can destroy itself. Notting Hill shall always be the judge. If it is your will because of this matter of General Wilson’s statue to make war upon Bayswater…”
A roar of cheers broke in upon his words, and further speech was impossible. Pale to the lips, the great patriot tried again and again to speak; but even his authority could not keep down the dark and roaring masses in the street below him. He said something further, but it was not audible. He descended at last sadly from the garret in which he lived, and mingled with the crowd at the foot of the houses. Finding General Turnbull, he put his hand on his shoulder with a queer affection and gravity, and said:
“To-morrow, old man, we shall have a new experience, as fresh as the flowers of spring. We shall be defeated. You and I have been through three battles together, and have somehow or other missed this peculiar delight. It is unfortunate that we shall not probably be able to exchange our experiences, because, as it most annoyingly happens, we shall probably both be dead.”
Turnbull looked dimly surprised.
“I don’t mind so much about being dead,” he said, “but why should you say that we shall be defeated?”
“The answer is very simple,” replied Wayne, calmly. “It is because we ought to be defeated. We have been in the most horrible holes before now; but in all those I was perfectly certain that the stars were on our side, and that we ought to get out. Now, I know that we ought not to get out; and that takes away from me everything with which I won.”
As Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became aware that a third figure was listening to them…a small figure with wondering eyes.
“Is it really true, my dear Wayne,” said the King, interrupting, “that you think you will be beaten to-morrow?”
“There can be no doubt about it whatever,” replied Adam Wayne; “the real reason is the one of which I have just spoken. But as a concession to your materialism, I will add that they have an organized army of a hundred allied cities against our one. That in itself, however, would be unimportant.”
Quin, with his round eyes, seemed strangely insistent.
“You are quite sure,” he said, “that you must be beaten?”
“I am afraid,” said Turnbull, gloomily, “that there can be no doubt about it.”
“Then,” cried the King, flinging out his arms, “give me a halberd! Give me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to witness that I, Auberon, King of England, do here and now abdicate and implore the Provost of Notting Hill to permit me to enlist in his army. Give me a halberd!”
He seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, stamped solemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers which were, by this time, parading the streets. He had, however, nothing to do with the wrecking of the statue of General Wilson, which took place before morning.
CHAPTER II
THE LAST BATTLE
THE day was cloudy when Wayne went down to die with all his army in Kensington Gardens; it was cloudy again when that army had been swallowed up by the vast armies of a new world. There had been an almost uncanny interval of sunshine, in which the Provost of Notting Hill, with all the placidity of an onlooker, had gazed across to the hostile armies on the great spaces of verdure opposite; the long strips of green and blue and gold lay across the park in squares and oblongs like a proposition in Euclid wrought in a rich embroidery. But the sunlight was a weak and, as it were, a wet sunlight, and was soon swallowed up. Wayne spoke to the King, with a queer sort of coldness and languor, as to the military operations. It was as he had said the night before, that being deprived of his sense of an impracticable rectitude he was, in effect, being deprived of everything. He was out of date, and at sea in a mere world of compromise and competition, of Empire against Empire, of the tolerably right and the tolerably wrong. When his eye fell on the King, however, who was marching very gravely with a top hat and a halberd, it brightened slightly.
“Well, your Majesty,” he said, “you at least ought to be proud to-day. If your children are fighting each other, at least those who win are your children. Other kings have distributed justice, you have distributed life. Other kings have ruled a nation, you have created nations. Others have made kingdoms, you have begotten them. Look at your children, father.” And he stretched his hand out towards the enemy.
Auberon did not raise his eyes.
“See how splendidly,” cried Wayne, “the new cities come on…the new cities from across the river. See where Battersea advances over there…under the flag of the Lost Dog; and Putney…don’t you see the Man on the White Boar shining on their standard as the sun catches it? It is the coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not a common empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a mode of life, of a manner of living, which shall renew the youth of the world…a thing like Nazareth. When I was young I remember, in the old dreary days, wiseacres used to write books about how trains would get faster, and all the world would be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon. And even as a child I used to say to myself, ‘Far more likely that we shall go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the city.’ And so it has been. And I am glad, though this is my last battle.”
Even as he spoke there came a crash of steel from the left, and he turned his head.
“Wilson!” he cried, with a kind of joy. “Red Wilson has charged our left. No one can hold him; he eats swords. He is as keen a soldier as Turnbull, but less patient…less really great. Ha! and Barker is moving. How Barker has improved; how handsome he looks. It is not all having plumes; it is also having a soul in one’s daily life. Ha!”
And another crash of steel on the right showed that Barker had closed with Notting Hill on the other side.
“Turnbull is there!” cried Wayne. “See him hurl them back! Barker is checked! Turnbull charges…wins! But our left is broken. Wilson has smashed Bowles and Mead, and may turn our flank. Forward, the Provost’s Guard!”
And the whole centre moved forward, Wayne’s face and hair and sword flaming in the van.
The King ran suddenly forward.
The next instant a great jar that went through it told that it had met the enemy. And right over against them through the wood of their own weapons Auberon saw the Purple Eagle of Buck of North Kensington.
On the left Red Wilson was storming the broken ranks, his little green figure conspicuous even in the tangle of men and weapons, with the flaming red moustaches and the crown of laurel. Bowles slashed at his head and tore away some of the wreath, leaving the rest bloody, and, with a roar like a bull’s, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattle of fencing, plunged his point into the chemist, who fell, crying “Notting Hill!” Then the Notting Hillers wavered, and Bayswater swept them back in confusion. Wilson had carried everything before him.
On the right, however, Turnbull had carried the Red Lion banner with a rush against Barker’s men, and the banner of the Golden Birds bore up with difficulty against it. Barker’s men fell fast. In the centre Wayne and Buck were engaged, stubborn and confused. So far as the fighting went, it was precisely equal. But the fighting was a farce. For behind the three small armies with which Wayne’s small army was engaged lay the great sea of the allied armies, which looked on as yet as scornful spectators, but could have broken all four armies by moving a finger.
Suddenly they did move. Some of the front contingents, the pastoral chiefs from Shepherd’s Bush, with their spears and fleeces, were seen advancing, and the rude clans from Paddington Green. They were advancing for a very good reason. Buck, of North Kensington, was signalling wildly; he was surrounded, and totally cut off. His regiments were a struggling mass of people, islanded in a red sea of Notting Hill.
The allies had been too careless and confident. They had allowed Barker’s force to be broken to pieces by Turnbull, and the moment that was done, the astute old leader of Notting Hill swung his men round and attacked Buck behind and on both sides. At the same moment Wayne cried “Charge!” and struck him in front like a thunderbolt.
Two-thirds of Buck’s men were cut to pieces before their allies could reach them. Then the sea of cities came on with their banners like breakers, and swallowed Notting Hill for ever. The battle was not over, for not one of Wayne’s men would surrender, and it lasted till sundown, and long after. But it was decided; the story of Notting Hill was ended.
When Turnbull saw it, he ceased a moment from fighting, and looked round him. The evening sunlight struck his face; it looked like a child’s.
“I have had my youth,” he said. Then snatching an axe from a man, he dashed into the thick of the spears of Shepherd’s Bush, and died somewhere far in the depths of their reeling ranks. Then the battle roared on; every man of Notting Hill was slain before night.
Wayne was standing by a tree alone after the battle. Several men approached him with axes. One struck at him. His foot seemed partly to slip; but he flung his hand out, and steadied himself against the tree.
Barker sprang after him, sword in hand, and shaking with excitement.
“How large now, my lord,” he cried, “is the Empire of Notting Hill?”
Wayne smiled in the gathering dark.
“Always as large as this,” he said, and swept his sword round in a semicircle of silver.
Barker dropped, wounded in the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came behind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and a mass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city before them, and shouting aloud.
At the same second Wilson went down under Wayne’s sword, seemingly smashed like a fly. The great sword rose again like, a bird, but Wilson seemed to rise with it, and, his sword being broken, sprang at Wayne’s throat like a dog. The foremost of the yellow halberdiers had reached the tree and swung his axe above the struggling Wayne. With a curse the King whirled up his own halberd and dashed the blade in the man’s face. He reeled, and rolled, down the slope, just as the furious Wilson was flung on his back again. And again he was on his feet, and again at Wayne’s throat. Then he was flung again, but this time laughing triumphantly. Grasped in his hand was the red and yellow favour that Wayne wore as Provost of Notting Hill. He had torn it from the place where it had been carried for twenty-five years.
With a shout the West Kensington men closed round Wayne, the great yellow banner flapping over his head.
“Where is your favour now, Provost?” cried the West Kensington leader. And a laugh went up.
Adam struck at the standard-bearer and brought him reeling forward. As the banner stooped, he grasped the yellow folds and tore off a shred. A halberdier struck him on the shoulder, wounding bloodily.
“Here is one colour!” he cried, pushing the yellow into his belt; “and here!” he cried, pointing to his own blood, “Here is the other.”
At the same instant the shock of a sudden and heavy halberd laid the King stunned or dead. In the wild visions of vanishing consciousness, he saw again something that belonged to an utterly forgotten time, something that he had seen somewhere long ago in a restaurant. He saw, with his swimming eyes, red and yellow, the colours of Nicaragua.
Quin did not see the end. Wilson, wild with joy, sprang again at Adam Wayne, and the great sword of Notting Hill was whirled above once more. Then men ducked instinctively at the rushing noise of the sword coming down out of the sky, and Wilson of Bayswater was smashed and wiped down upon the floor like a fly. Nothing was left of him but a wreck; but the blade that had broken him was broken. In dying he had snapped the great sword and the spell of it; the sword of Wayne was broken, at the hilt. One rush of the enemy carried Wayne by force against the tree. They were too close to use halberd or even sword; they were breast to breast, even nostrils to nostrils. But Buck got his dagger free.
“Kill him!” he cried, in a strange stifled voice. “Kill him! Good or bad, he is none of us! Do not be blinded by the face! … God! have we not been blinded all along!” and he drew his arm back for a stab and seemed to close his eyes.
Wayne did not drop the hand that hung on to the tree-branch. But a mighty heave went over his breast, and his whole huge figure, like an earthquake over great hills. And with that convulsion of effort he rent the branch out of the tree, with tongues of torn wood. And swaying it once only, he let the splintered club fall on Buck, breaking his neck. The planner of the Great Road fell face foremost dead, with his dagger in a grip of steel.
“For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother,” said Wayne, in his strange chant, “there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of the world.”
The packed men made another lurch or heave towards him; it was almost too dark to fight clearly. He caught hold of the oak again, this time getting his hand into a wide crevice and grasping, as it were, the bowels of the tree. The whole crowd, numbering some thirty men, made a rush to tear him away from it; they hung on with all their weight and numbers, and nothing stirred. A solitude could not have been stiller than that group of straining men. Then there was a faint sound.
“His hand is slipping,” cried two men in exultation.
“You don’t know much of him,” said another, grimly (a man of the old war). “More likely his bone cracks.”
“It is neither…by God, it is neither!” said one of the first two.
“What is it, then?” asked the second.
“The tree is falling,” he replied.
“As the tree falleth, so shall it lie,” said Wayne’s voice out of the darkness, and it had the same sweet and yet horrible air that it had had throughout, of coming from a great distance, from before or after the event. Even when he was struggling like an eel or battering like a madman, he spoke like a spectator, “As the tree falleth, so shall it lie,” he said. “Men have called that a gloomy text. It is the essence of all exultation. I am doing now what I have done all my life, what is the only happiness, what is the only universality. I am clinging to something. Let it fall, and there let it lie. Fools, you go about and see the kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal, and wise, and cosmopolitan, which is all that the devil can give you…all that he could offer to Christ only to be spurned away. I am doing what the truly wise do. When a child goes out into the garden and takes hold of a tree, saying, ‘Let this tree be all I have,’ that moment its roots take hold on hell and its branches on the stars. The joy I have is what the lover knows when a woman is everything. It is what a savage knows when his idol is everything. It is what I know when Notting Hill is everything. I have a city. Let it stand or fall.”
As he spoke the turf lifted itself like a living thing, and out of it rose slowly, like crested serpents, the roots of the oak. Then the great head of the tree, that seemed a green cloud among grey ones, swept the sky suddenly like a broom, and the whole tree heeled over like a ship, smashing every one in its fall.
CHAPTER III
TWO VOICES
IN a place in which there was total darkness for hours, there was also for hours total silence. Then a voice spoke out of the darkness, no one could have told from where, and said aloud:
“So ends the Empire of Notting Hill. As it began in blood, so it ended in blood, and all things are always the same.”
And there was silence again, and then again there was a voice, but it had not the same tone; it seemed that it was not the same voice.
“If all things are always the same, it is because they are always heroic. If all things are always the same, it is because they are always new. To each man one soul only is given; to each soul only is given a little power…the power at some moments to outgrow and swallow up the stars. If age after age that power comes upon men, whatever gives it to them is great. Whatever makes men feel old is mean…an empire or a skin-flint shop. Whatever makes men feel young is great…a great war or a love story. And in the darkest of the books of God there is written a truth that is also a riddle. It is of the new things that men tire…of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young. There is no sceptic who does not feel that many have doubted before. There is no rich and fickle man who does not feel that all his novelties are ancient. There is no worshipper of change who does not feel upon his neck the vast weight of the weariness of the universe. But we who do the old things are fed by nature with a perpetual infancy. No man who is in love thinks that any one has been in love before. No woman who has a child thinks that there have been such things as children. No people that fight for their own city are haunted with the burden of the broken empires. Yes, oh dark voice, the world is always the same, for it is always unexpected.”
A little gust of wind brew through the night, and then the first voice answered:
“But in this world there are some, be they wise or foolish, whom nothing intoxicates. There are some who see all your disturbances like a cloud of flies. They know that while men will laugh at your Notting Hill, and will study and rehearse and sing of Athens and Jerusalem, Athens and Jerusalem were silly suburbs like your Notting Hill. They know that the earth itself is a suburb, and can feel only drearily and respectably amused as they move upon it.”
“They are philosophers or they are fools,” said the other voice. “They are not men. Men live, as I say, rejoicing from age to age in something fresher than progress…in the fact that with every baby a new sun and a new moon are made. If our ancient humanity were a single man, it might perhaps be that he would break down under the memory of so many loyalties, under the burden of so many diverse heroisms, under the load and terror of all the goodness of men. But it has pleased God so to isolate the individual soul that it can only learn of all other souls by hearsay, and to each one goodness and happiness come with the youth and violence of lightning, as momentary and as pure. And the doom of failure that lies on all human systems does not in real fact affect them any more than the worms of the inevitable grave affect a children’s game hi a meadow. Notting Hill has fallen; Notting Hill has died. But that is not the tremendous issue. Notting Hill has lived.”
“But if,” answered the other voice, “if what is achieved by all these efforts be only the common contentment of humanity, why do men so extravagantly toil and die in them? Has nothing been done by Notting Hill that any chance clump of farmers or clan of savages would not have done without it? What might have been done to Notting Hill if the world had been different may be a deep question; but there is a deeper. What could have happened to the world if Notting Hill had never been?”
The other voice replied:
“The same that would have happened to the world and all the starry systems if an apple-tree grew six apples instead of seven; something would have been eternally lost. There has never been anything in the world absolutely like Notting Hill. There will never be anything quite like it to the crack of doom. I cannot believe anything but that God loved it as He must surely love anything that is itself and unreplaceable. But even for that I do not care. If God, with all His thunders, hated it, I loved it.”
And with the voice a tall, strange figure lifted itself out of the debris in the half-darkness.
The other voice came after a long pause, and as it were hoarsely.
“But suppose the whole matter were really a hocus-pocus. Suppose that whatever meaning you may choose in your fancy to give to it, the real meaning of the whole was mockery. Suppose it was all folly. Suppose…”
“I have been in it,” answered the voice from the tall and strange figure, “and I know it was not.”
A smaller figure seemed half to rise in the dark.
“Suppose I am God,” said the voice, “and suppose I made the world in idleness. Suppose the stars, that you think eternal, are only the idiot fireworks of an everlasting schoolboy. Suppose the sun and the moon, to which you sing alternately, are only the two eyes of one vast and sneering giant, opened alternately in a never-ending wink. Suppose the trees, in my eyes, are as foolish as enormous toad-stools. Suppose Socrates and Charlemagne are to me only beasts, made funnier by walking on their hind legs. Suppose I am God, and having made things, laugh at them.”
“And suppose I am man,” answered the other. “And suppose that I give the answer that shatters even a laugh. Suppose I do not laugh back at you, do not blaspheme you, do not curse you. But suppose, standing up straight under the sky, with every power of my being, I thank you for the fools’ paradise you have made. Suppose I praise you, with a literal pain of ecstacy, for the jest that has brought me so terrible a joy. If we have taken the child’s games, and given them the seriousness of a Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque Dutch garden with the blood of martyrs, we have turned a nursery into a temple. I ask you, in the name of Heaven, who wins?”
The sky close about the crest of the hills and trees was beginning to turn from black to grey, with a random suggestion of the morning. The slight figure seemed to crawl towards the larger one, and the voice was more human.
“But suppose, friend,” it said, “suppose that, in a bitterer and more real sense, it was all a mockery. Suppose that there had been, from the beginning of these great wars, one who watched them with a sense that is beyond expression, a sense of detachment, of responsibility, of irony, of agony. Suppose that there were one who knew it was all a joke.”
The tall figure answered:
“He could not know it. For it was not all a joke.”
And a gust of wind blew away some clouds that sealed the sky-line, and showed a strip of silver behind his great dark legs. Then the other voice came, having crept nearer still.
“Adam Wayne,” it said, “there are men who confess only in articulo mortis; there are people who blame themselves only when they can no longer help others. I am one of them. Here, upon the field of the bloody end of it all, I come to tell you plainly what you would never understand before. Do you know who I am?”
“I know you, Auberon Quin,” answered the tall figure, “and I shall be glad to unburden your spirit of anything that lies upon it.”
“Adam Wayne,” said the other voice, “of what I have to say you cannot in common reason be glad to unburden me. Wayne, it was all a joke. When I made these cities, I cared no more for them than I care for a centaur, or a merman, or a fish with legs, or a pig with feathers, or any other absurdity. When I spoke to you solemnly and encouragingly about the flag of your freedom and the peace of your city, I was playing a vulgar practical joke on an honest gentleman, a vulgar practical joke that has lasted for twenty years. Though no one could believe it of me perhaps, it is the truth that I am a man both timid and tender-hearted. I never dared in the early days of your hope, or the central days of your supremacy, to tell you this; I never dared to break the colossal calm of your face. God knows why I should do it now, when my farce has ended in tragedy and the ruin of all your people! But I say it now. Wayne, it was done as a joke.”
There was silence, and the freshening breeze blew the sky clearer and clearer, leaving great spaces of the white dawn.
At last Wayne said, very slowly:
“You did it all only as a joke?”
“Yes,” said Quin.
“When you conceived the idea,” went on Wayne, dreamily, “of an army for Bayswater and a flag for Notting Hill, there was no gleam, no suggestion in your mind that such things might be real and passionate?”
“No,” answered Auberon, turning his round, white face to the morning with a dull and splendid sincerity; “I had none at all.”
Wayne sprang down from the height above him and held out his hand.
“I will not stop to thank you,” he said, with a curious joy in his voice, “for the great good for the world you have actually wrought. All that I think of that I have said to you a moment ago, even when I thought that your voice was the voice of a derisive omnipotence, its laughter older than the winds of heaven. But let me say what is immediate and true. You and I, Auberon Quin, have both of us throughout our lives been again and again called mad. And we are mad. We are mad, because we are not two men but one man. We are mad, because we are two lobes of the same brain, and that brain has been cloven in two. And if you ask for the proof of it, it is not hard to find. It is not merely that you, the humourist, have been in these dark days stripped of the joy of gravity. It is not merely that I, the fanatic, have had to grope without humour. It is that though we seem to be opposite iii everything, we have been opposite like man and woman, aiming at the same moment at the same practical thing. We are the father and the mother of the Charter of the Cities.”
Quin looked down at the debris of leaves and timber, the relics of the battle and stampede, now glistening in the glowing daylight, and finally said:
“Yet nothing can alter the antagonism…the fact that I laughed at these things and you adored them.”
Wayne’s wild face flamed with something god-like, as he turned it to be struck by the sunrise.
“I know of something that will alter that antagonism, something that is outside us, something that you and I have all our lives perhaps taken too little account of. The equal and eternal human being will alter that antagonism, for the human being sees no real antagonism between laughter and respect, the human being, the common man, whom mere geniuses like you and me, can only worship like a god. When dark and dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic, the pure satirist. We have between us remedied a great wrong. We have lifted the modern cities into that poetry which every one who knows mankind knows to be immeasurably more common than the commonplace. But in healthy people there is no war between us. We are but the two lobes of the brain of a ploughman. Laughter and love are everywhere. The cathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friend at the friend. Auberon Quin, we have been too long separated, let us go out together. You have a halberd and I a sword, let us start our wanderings over the world. For we are its two essentials. Come, it is already day.”
In the blank white light Auberon hesitated a moment. Then he made the formal salute with his halberd, and they went away together into the unknown world.
THE END.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE ART OF PROPHECY
THE human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, “Keep to-morrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.
But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the Prophet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. The reason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man did something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the State. And all these clever men were at work giving accounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all quite keen-sighted and ruthless, and all quite different. And it seemed that the good old game of hoodwinking your ancestors could not really be managed this time, because the ancestors neglected meat and sleep and practical politics, so that they might meditate day and night on what their descendants would be likely to do.
But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work was this. They took something or other that was certainly going on in their time, and then said that it would go on more and more until something extraordinary happened. And very often they added that in some odd place that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it showed the signs of the times.
Thus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G. Wells and others, who thought that science would take charge of the future; and just as the motor-car was quicker than the coach, so some lovely thing would be quicker than the motorcar; and so on for ever. And there arose from their ashes Dr. Quilp, who said that a man could be sent on his machine so fast round the world that he could keep up a long chatty conversation in some old-world village by saying a word of a sentence each time he came round. And it was said that the experiment had been tried on an apoplectic old major, who was sent round the world so fast that there seemed to be (to the inhabitants of some other star) a continuous band round the earth of white whiskers, red complexion and tweeds…a thing like the ring of Saturn.
Then there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward Carpenter, who thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and live simply and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followed by James Pickie, D.D. (of Pocahontas College), who said that men were immensely improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and continuously, alter the manner of cows. And he said that he had, with the most encouraging results, turned city men out on all fours in a field covered with veal cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed (“shedding,” as he called it finely, “the green blood of the silent animals”), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called “Why should Salt suffer?” and there was more trouble.
And on the other hand, some people were predicting that the lines of kinship would become narrower and sterner. There was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who thought that the one thing of the future was the British Empire, and that there would be a gulf between those who were of the Empire and those who were not, between the Chinaman in Hong-Kong and the Chinaman outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar and the Spaniard off it, similar to the gulf between man and the lower animals. And in the same way his impetuous friend, Dr. Zoppi (“the Paul of Anglo-Saxonism”), carried it yet further, and held that, as a result of this view, cannibalism should be held to mean eating a member of the Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, who should, he said, be killed without needless pain. His horror at the idea of eating a man in British Guiana showed how they misunderstood his stoicism who thought him devoid of feeling. He was, however, in a hard position; as it was said that he had attempted the experiment, and, living in London, had to subsist entirely on Italian organ-grinders. And his end was terrible, for just when he had begun, Sir Paul Swiller read his great paper at the Royal Society, proving that the savages were not only quite right in eating their enemies, but right on moral and hygienic grounds, since it was true that the qualities of the enemy, when eaten, passed into the eater. The notion that the nature of an Italian organ-man was irrevocably growing and burgeoning inside him was almost more than the kindly old professor could bear.
There was Mr. Benjamin Kidd, who said that the growing note of our race would be the care for and knowledge of the future. His idea was developed more powerfully by William Borker, who wrote that passage which every schoolboy knows by heart, about men in future ages weeping by the graves of their descendants, and tourists being shown over the scene of the historic battle which was to take place some centuries afterwards.
And Mr. Stead, too, was prominent, who thought that England would in the twentieth century be united to America; and his young lieutenant, Graham Podge, who included the states of France, Germany, and Russia in the American Union, the State of Russia being abbreviated to Ra.
There was Mr. Sidney Webb, also, who said that the future would see a continuously increasing order and neatness in the life of the people, and his poor friend Fipps, who went mad and ran about the country with an axe, hacking branches off the trees whenever there were not the same number on both sides.
All these clever men were prophesying with every variety of ingenuity what would happen soon, and they all did it in the same way, by taking something they saw ‘going strong,’ as the saying is, and carrying it as far as ever their imagination could stretch. This, they said, was the true and simple way of anticipating the future. “Just as,” said Dr. Pellkins, in a fine passage, “…just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law of the Inscrutable it will some day be larger than an elephant, just as we know, when we see weeds and dandelions growing more and more thickly in a garden, that they must, in spite of all our efforts, grow taller than the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so we know and reverently acknowledge, that when any power in human politics has shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go on until it reaches to the sky.”
And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet) in a quite unprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything without fulfilling some of their prophecies.
But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets, of peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especially women, a strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever of doubt. They could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. They still had something up their sleeve; they were still playing the game of Cheat the Prophet.
Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither and thither, crying, “What can it be? What can it be? What will London be like a century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Houses upside down…more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands…make feet flexible, don’t you know? Moon… motor-cars… no heads…” And so they swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely.
Then the people went and did what they liked. Let me no longer conceal the painful truth. The people had cheated the prophets of the twentieth century. When the curtain goes up on this story, eighty years after the present date, London is almost exactly like what it is now.
CAPITOLO I
OSSERVAZIONI INTRODUTTIVE SULL’ARTE DELLA PROFEZIA
Il genere umano, al quale appartengono tanti dei miei lettori, gioca a giochi da bambini fin dal principio, e probabilmente continuerà a farlo sino alla fine, con gran disturbo delle poche persone che diventano adulte. E uno dei giochi a cui è più affezionato si chiama “Tieni al buio il domani”, ed è anche detto (dai contadini dello Shropshire, non ho dubbio) “Inganna il Profeta.” I giocatori ascoltano con grande attenzione e rispetto tutto ciò che gli uomini astuti hanno da dire su ciò che accadrà nella prossima generazione. I giocatori poi aspettano che tutti gli uomini astuti siano morti, e li seppelliscono per bene. Poi vanno a fare qualcos’altro. È tutto. Per una razza dai gusti semplici, tuttavia, è un gran divertimento.
Poiché gli esseri umani, essendo bambini, hanno la fanciullesca caparbietà e la fanciullesca segretezza. E non hanno mai, dal principio del mondo, fatto ciò che i saggi hanno visto essere inevitabile. Lapidarono i falsi profeti, si dice; ma avrebbero potuto lapidare i veri profeti con un godimento maggiore e più giusto. Individualmente, gli uomini possono presentare un aspetto più o meno razionale, mangiando, dormendo e tramando. Ma l’umanità nel suo insieme è mutevole, mistica, volubile, deliziosa. Gli uomini sono uomini, ma l’Uomo è una donna.
Ma all’inizio del ventesimo secolo il gioco di Inganna il Profeta fu reso assai più difficile di quanto fosse mai stato prima. La ragione era che c’erano tanti profeti e tante profezie, che era difficile eludere tutte le loro ingegnosità. Quando un uomo faceva qualcosa di libero e frenetico e interamente proprio, un pensiero orribile lo colpiva dopo: poteva essere stato predetto. Ogni volta che un duca si arrampicava su un lampione, quando un decano si ubriacava, non poteva essere davvero felice, non poteva essere certo di non star adempiendo qualche profezia. All’inizio del ventesimo secolo non si vedeva il terreno per la folla di uomini astuti. Erano così comuni che un uomo stupido era del tutto eccezionale, e quando ne trovavano uno, lo seguivano in massa per la strada e lo custodivano come un tesoro e gli davano qualche alta carica nello Stato. E tutti questi uomini astuti erano all’opera a fare resoconti di ciò che sarebbe accaduto nell’età successiva, tutti chiarissimi, tutti acutissimi e spietati, e tutti diversissimi. E sembrava che il buon vecchio gioco di ingannare i propri antenati non potesse davvero riuscire questa volta, perché gli antenati trascuravano cibo e sonno e politica pratica, così da poter meditare giorno e notte su ciò che i loro discendenti avrebbero probabilmente fatto.
Ma il modo in cui i profeti del ventesimo secolo si mettevano all’opera era questo. Prendevano una cosa o l’altra che certamente stava accadendo ai loro tempi, e poi dicevano che sarebbe andata avanti sempre più finché qualcosa di straordinario non fosse accaduto. E molto spesso aggiungevano che in qualche luogo strambo quella cosa straordinaria era accaduta, e che mostrava i segni dei tempi.
Così, per esempio, c’erano il signor H. G. Wells e altri, che pensavano che la scienza avrebbe preso in mano il futuro; e proprio come l’automobile era più veloce della diligenza, così qualche cosa graziosa sarebbe stata più veloce dell’automobile; e così via all’infinito. E dalle loro ceneri sorse il dottor Quilp, il quale disse che un uomo poteva essere spedito sulla sua macchina così velocemente intorno al mondo da poter sostenere una lunga chiacchierata in qualche villaggio d’altri tempi dicendo una parola di una frase ogni volta che tornava a passare. E si disse che l’esperimento era stato tentato su un vecchio maggiore apoplettico, spedito intorno al mondo così velocemente che sembrava esserci (agli abitanti di qualche altra stella) una fascia continua intorno alla terra di favoriti bianchi, carnagione rossa e tweed… una cosa simile all’anello di Saturno.
Poi c’era la scuola opposta. C’era il signor Edward Carpenter, il quale pensava che in brevissimo tempo saremmo tornati alla Natura, e avremmo vissuto semplicemente e lentamente come fanno gli animali. Ed Edward Carpenter fu seguito da James Pickie, D.D. (del Pocahontas College), il quale disse che gli uomini erano immensamente migliorati dal pascolare, ossia dal prendere il cibo lentamente e di continuo, alla maniera delle mucche. E disse di aver, con i risultati più incoraggianti, mandato uomini di città carponi in un campo cosparso di cotolette di vitello. Poi Tolstoj e gli Umanitari dissero che il mondo stava diventando più misericordioso, e che perciò nessuno avrebbe più desiderato uccidere. E il signor Mick non solo divenne vegetariano, ma alla fine dichiarò il vegetarianismo condannato (“versando”, come lo definì con eleganza, “il verde sangue dei silenziosi animali”), e predisse che gli uomini di un’età migliore avrebbero vissuto di nient’altro che sale. E poi arrivò l’opuscolo dall’Oregon (dove la cosa fu tentata), l’opuscolo intitolato “Perché dovrebbe soffrire il Sale?” e ci furono altri guai.
E d’altra parte, alcuni predicevano che le linee di parentela sarebbero diventate più strette e più dure. C’era il signor Cecil Rhodes, il quale pensava che l’unica cosa del futuro fosse l’Impero Britannico, e che vi sarebbe stato un abisso tra quelli che erano dell’Impero e quelli che non lo erano, tra il cinese di Hong-Kong e il cinese fuori, tra lo spagnolo sulla Rocca di Gibilterra e lo spagnolo fuori di essa, simile all’abisso tra l’uomo e gli animali inferiori. E allo stesso modo il suo impetuoso amico, il dottor Zoppi (“il Paolo dell’anglosassonismo”), la portò ancora più in là, e sostenne che, in conseguenza di questa veduta, il cannibalismo dovesse intendersi come il mangiare un membro dell’Impero, non il mangiare uno dei popoli soggetti, i quali dovrebbero, disse, essere uccisi senza inutile dolore. Il suo orrore all’idea di mangiare un uomo nella Guiana Britannica mostrava quanto fraintendessero il suo stoicismo coloro che lo credevano privo di sentimento. Egli era, tuttavia, in una posizione difficile; poiché si diceva che avesse tentato l’esperimento, e, vivendo a Londra, avesse dovuto sostentarsi interamente con suonatori d’organetto italiani. E la sua fine fu terribile, poiché proprio quando aveva cominciato, Sir Paul Swiller lesse il suo grande saggio alla Royal Society, dimostrando che i selvaggi non solo avevano perfettamente ragione a mangiare i loro nemici, ma avevano ragione su basi morali e igieniche, poiché era vero che le qualità del nemico, una volta mangiate, passavano in chi lo mangiava. L’idea che la natura di un suonatore d’organetto italiano crescesse e germogliasse irrevocabilmente dentro di lui era quasi più di quanto il buon vecchio professore potesse sopportare.
C’era il signor Benjamin Kidd, il quale disse che la nota crescente della nostra razza sarebbe stata la cura per il futuro e la conoscenza di esso. La sua idea fu sviluppata più potentemente da William Borker, il quale scrisse quel passo che ogni scolaretto sa a memoria, sugli uomini delle età future che piangono presso le tombe dei loro discendenti, e sui turisti a cui viene mostrata la scena della storica battaglia che doveva aver luogo alcuni secoli dopo.
E anche il signor Stead fu di rilievo, il quale pensava che l’Inghilterra sarebbe stata nel ventesimo secolo unita all’America; e il suo giovane luogotenente, Graham Podge, il quale includeva gli stati di Francia, Germania e Russia nell’Unione americana, con lo Stato di Russia abbreviato in Ra.
C’era anche il signor Sidney Webb, il quale disse che il futuro avrebbe visto un ordine e una nitidezza in continuo aumento nella vita del popolo, e il suo povero amico Fipps, che impazzì e corse per la campagna con un’ascia, mozzando i rami dagli alberi ogni volta che non ve n’erano lo stesso numero su entrambi i lati.
Tutti questi uomini astuti profetizzavano con ogni varietà di ingegno ciò che sarebbe presto accaduto, e lo facevano tutti allo stesso modo, prendendo qualcosa che vedevano “andare forte”, come si suol dire, e portandolo tanto lontano quanto la loro immaginazione poteva stendersi. Questo, dicevano, era il vero e semplice modo di anticipare il futuro. “Proprio come,” disse il dottor Pellkins, in un bel passo, “…proprio come quando vediamo in una nidiata un maialino più grande degli altri maialini, sappiamo che per un’inalterabile legge dell’Imperscrutabile un giorno sarà più grande di un elefante, proprio come sappiamo, quando vediamo erbacce e denti di leone crescere sempre più fitti in un giardino, che devono, a dispetto di tutti i nostri sforzi, crescere più alti dei comignoli e inghiottire la casa sottraendola alla vista, così sappiamo e riverentemente riconosciamo, che quando un potere qualsiasi nella politica umana ha mostrato per un periodo di tempo qualsiasi un’attività considerevole, esso andrà avanti finché non raggiungerà il cielo.”
E certamente pareva che i profeti avessero messo il popolo (impegnato nel vecchio gioco di Inganna il Profeta) in una difficoltà del tutto senza precedenti. Sembrava davvero arduo fare qualcosa senza adempiere qualcuna delle loro profezie.
Ma c’era, nondimeno, negli occhi dei manovali nelle strade, dei contadini nei campi, dei marinai e dei bambini, e specialmente delle donne, uno strano sguardo che teneva i saggi in una perfetta febbre di dubbio. Non riuscivano a scandagliare l’immobile ilarità nei loro occhi. Avevano ancora qualcosa nella manica; stavano ancora giocando al gioco di Inganna il Profeta.
Allora i saggi divennero come cose selvagge, e oscillavano di qua e di là, gridando: “Cosa può essere? Cosa può essere? Come sarà Londra fra un secolo? C’è qualcosa a cui non abbiamo pensato? Case a testa in giù… più igieniche, forse? Uomini che camminano sulle mani… rendono i piedi flessibili, non è vero? Luna… automobili… senza teste…” E così oscillavano e si stupivano finché non morirono e furono seppelliti per bene.
Allora il popolo andò e fece ciò che gli piaceva. Non lasciate che io celi più a lungo la penosa verità. Il popolo aveva ingannato i profeti del ventesimo secolo. Quando il sipario si alza su questa storia, ottant’anni dopo la data presente, Londra è quasi esattamente com’è ora.
CHAPTER II
THE MAN IN GREEN
VERY few words are needed to explain why London, a hundred years hence, will be very like it is now, or rather, since I must slip into a prophetic past, why London, when my story opens, was very like it was in those enviable days when I was still alive.
The reason can be stated in one sentence. The people had absolutely lost faith in revolutions. All revolutions are doctrinal…such as the French one, or the one that introduced Christianity. For it stands to common sense that you cannot upset all existing things, customs, and compromises, unless you believe in something outside them, something positive and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost all belief in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And it said, “All theoretic changes have ended in blood and ennui. If we change, we must change slowly and safely, as the animals do. Nature’s revolutions are the only successful ones. There has been no conservative reaction in favour of tails.”
And some things did change. Things that were not much thought of dropped out of sight. Things that had not often happened did not happen at all. Thus, for instance, the actual physical force ruling the country, the soldiers and police, grew smaller and smaller, and at last vanished almost to a point. The people combined could have swept the few policemen away in ten minutes: they did not, because they did not believe it would do them the least good. They had lost faith in revolutions.
Democracy was dead; for no one minded the governing class governing. England was now practically a despotism, but not an hereditary one. Some one in the official class was made King. No one cared how; no one cared who. He was merely an universal secretary.
In this manner it happened that everything in London was very quiet. That vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon things happening as they have always happened, which is with all Londoners a mood, had become an assumed condition. There was really no reason for any man doing anything but the thing he had done the day before.
There was therefore no reason whatever why the three young men who had always walked up to their Government office together should not walk up to it together on this particular wintry and cloudy morning. Everything in that age had become mechanical, and Government clerks especially. All those clerks assembled regularly at their posts. Three of those clerks always walked into town together. All the neighbourhood knew them: two of them were tall and one short. And on this particular morning the short clerk was only a few seconds late to join the other two as they passed his gate: he could have overtaken them in three strides; he could have called after them easily. But he did not.
For some reason that will never be understood until all souls are judged (if they are ever judged; the idea was at this time classed with fetish worship) he did not join his two companions, but walked steadily behind them. The day was dull, their dress was dull, everything was dull; but in some odd impulse he walked through street after street, through district after district, looking at the backs of the two men, who would have swung round at the sound of his voice. Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.
So the short Government official looked at the coat-tails of the tall Government officials, and through street after street, and round corner after corner, saw only coat-tails, coat-tails, and again coat-tails…when, he did not in the least know why, something happened to his eyes.
Two black dragons were walking backwards in front of him. Two black dragons were looking at him with evil eyes. The dragons were walking backwards it was true, but they kept their eyes fixed on him none the less. The eyes which he saw were, in truth, only the two buttons at the back of a frock-coat: perhaps some traditional memory of their meaningless character gave this half-witted prominence to their gaze. The slit between the tails was the nose-line of the monster: whenever the tails flapped in the winter wind the dragons licked their lips. It was only a momentary fancy, but the small clerk found it imbedded in his soul ever afterwards. He never could again think of men in frock-coats except as dragons walking backwards. He explained afterwards, quite tactfully and nicely, to his two official friends, that while feeling an inexpressible regard for each of them he could not seriously regard the face of either of them as anything but a kind of tail. It was, he admitted, a handsome tail…a tail elevated in the air. But if, he said, any true friend of theirs wished to see their faces, to look into the eyes of their soul, that friend must be allowed to walk reverently round behind them, so as to see them from the rear. There he would see the two black dragons with the blind eyes.
But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles…they changed the universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know…that adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song. He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the four dead eyes glaring at him he looked round and realized the strange dead day.
The morning was wintry and dim, not misty, but darkened with that shadow of cloud or snow which steeps everything in a green or copper twilight. The light there is on such a day seems not so much to come from the clear heavens as to be a phosphorescence clinging to the shapes themselves. The load of heaven and the clouds is like a load of waters, and the men move like fishes, feeling that they are on the floor of a sea. Everything in a London street completes the fantasy; the carriages and cabs themselves resemble deep-sea creatures with eyes of flame. He had been startled at first to meet two dragons. Now he found he was among deep-sea dragons possessing the deep sea.
CAPITOLO II
L’UOMO IN VERDE
Bastano pochissime parole per spiegare perché Londra, fra un centinaio d’anni, sarà molto simile a com’è adesso, o piuttosto, poiché devo scivolare in un passato profetico, perché Londra, quando la mia storia si apre, era molto simile a com’era in quei giorni invidiabili in cui io ero ancora vivo.
La ragione può essere enunciata in una sola frase. Il popolo aveva assolutamente perduto la Fede nelle rivoluzioni. Tutte le rivoluzioni sono dottrinali… come quella francese, o quella che introdusse il Cristianesimo. Poiché è di senso comune che non si può sconvolgere tutto ciò che esiste, usanze e compromessi, se non si crede in qualcosa al di fuori di essi, qualcosa di positivo e di divino. Ora, l’Inghilterra, durante questo secolo, perse ogni fede in questo. Credette in una cosa chiamata Evoluzione. E disse: “Tutti i mutamenti teorici sono finiti in sangue e noia. Se cambiamo, dobbiamo cambiare lentamente e con sicurezza, come fanno gli animali. Le rivoluzioni della Natura sono le uniche riuscite. Non c’è stata alcuna reazione conservatrice in favore delle code.”
E alcune cose cambiarono davvero. Cose a cui non si pensava granché scomparvero dalla vista. Cose che non erano accadute spesso non accaddero affatto. Così, per esempio, la forza fisica effettiva che governava il paese, i soldati e la polizia, si fece sempre più piccola, e alla fine svanì quasi fino a un punto. Il popolo unito avrebbe potuto spazzar via i pochi poliziotti in dieci minuti: non lo fece, perché non credeva che ne avrebbe tratto il minimo giovamento. Aveva perduto la Fede nelle rivoluzioni.
La Democrazia era morta; poiché a nessuno importava che la classe dirigente governasse. L’Inghilterra era ormai praticamente un dispotismo, ma non ereditario. Qualcuno della classe ufficiale veniva fatto Re. A nessuno importava come; a nessuno importava chi. Era semplicemente un segretario universale.
In questo modo accadde che tutto a Londra fosse molto quieto. Quel vago e alquanto depresso affidamento sul fatto che le cose accadessero come erano sempre accadute, che in tutti i londinesi è uno stato d’animo, era divenuto una condizione data per scontata. Non c’era davvero alcuna ragione perché un uomo qualsiasi facesse qualcosa di diverso da ciò che aveva fatto il giorno prima.
Non c’era perciò alcuna ragione qualsiasi perché i tre giovanotti che avevano sempre camminato insieme fino al loro ufficio del Governo non camminassero insieme fino ad esso in questa particolare mattina invernale e nuvolosa. Ogni cosa in quell’età era divenuta meccanica, e gli impiegati del Governo in special modo. Tutti quegli impiegati si radunavano regolarmente ai loro posti. Tre di quegli impiegati camminavano sempre insieme verso il centro. Tutto il vicinato li conosceva: due erano alti e uno basso. E in questa particolare mattina l’impiegato basso era in ritardo di pochi secondi nel raggiungere gli altri due mentre passavano davanti al suo cancello: avrebbe potuto raggiungerli in tre falcate; avrebbe potuto chiamarli facilmente. Ma non lo fece.
Per una qualche ragione che non sarà mai compresa finché tutte le anime non saranno giudicate (se mai saranno giudicate; l’idea era a questo tempo classificata insieme al culto dei feticci) non si unì ai suoi due compagni, ma camminò con passo fermo dietro di loro. La giornata era spenta, il loro abito era spento, tutto era spento; ma per qualche strano impulso egli camminò attraverso strada dopo strada, attraverso quartiere dopo quartiere, guardando le schiene dei due uomini, che si sarebbero voltati di scatto al suono della sua voce. Ora, c’è una legge scritta nel più oscuro dei Libri della Vita, ed è questa: se guardi una cosa novecentonovantanove volte, sei perfettamente al sicuro; se la guardi la millesima volta, sei in spaventoso pericolo di vederla per la prima volta.
Così il basso funzionario del Governo guardò le falde della finanziera degli alti funzionari del Governo, e attraverso strada dopo strada, e voltando angolo dopo angolo, non vide che falde, falde, e ancora falde… quando, senza sapere minimamente perché, qualcosa accadde ai suoi occhi.
Due draghi neri camminavano all’indietro davanti a lui. Due draghi neri lo guardavano con occhi malvagi. I draghi camminavano all’indietro, è vero, ma tenevano gli occhi nondimeno fissi su di lui. Gli occhi che vedeva erano, in verità, soltanto i due bottoni sul dietro di una finanziera: forse qualche tradizionale memoria del loro carattere insensato conferiva questa scempia prominenza al loro sguardo. La fessura tra le falde era la linea del naso del Mostro: ogni volta che le falde sbattevano al vento invernale i draghi si leccavano le labbra. Fu solo una fantasia momentanea, ma il piccolo impiegato la trovò incastonata nell’anima per sempre dopo. Non poté mai più pensare a uomini in finanziera se non come draghi che camminavano all’indietro. Spiegò poi, con molto tatto e garbo, ai suoi due amici funzionari, che pur nutrendo un inesprimibile rispetto per ciascuno di loro non poteva seriamente considerare il volto di nessuno dei due come alcunché se non una specie di coda. Era, ammise, una bella coda… una coda innalzata in aria. Ma se, disse, un qualche vero amico di loro desiderasse vederne i volti, guardare negli occhi della loro anima, a quell’amico si doveva permettere di camminare riverentemente dietro di loro, così da vederli da tergo. Là avrebbe visto i due draghi neri dagli occhi ciechi.
Ma quando dapprima i due draghi neri balzarono fuori dalla nebbia sul piccolo impiegato, ebbero soltanto l’effetto di tutti i miracoli… mutarono l’universo. Egli scoprì il fatto che tutti i romantici conoscono… che le avventure accadono nei giorni spenti, e non in quelli assolati. Quando la corda della monotonia è tesa al massimo, allora si spezza con un suono simile a un canto. Prima aveva a malapena notato il tempo, ma con i quattro occhi morti che lo fissavano si guardò attorno e comprese la strana giornata morta.
Il mattino era invernale e fioco, non nebbioso, ma oscurato da quell’ombra di nube o di neve che immerge ogni cosa in un crepuscolo verde o ramato. La luce che c’è in una giornata simile pare venire non tanto dai limpidi cieli quanto essere una fosforescenza aderente alle forme stesse. Il peso del cielo e delle nubi è come un peso di acque, e gli uomini si muovono come pesci, sentendo di essere sul fondo di un mare. Ogni cosa in una strada di Londra completa la fantasia; le carrozze e le vetture stesse somigliano a creature d’abisso con occhi di fiamma. Dapprima si era spaventato di incontrare due draghi. Ora scoprì di essere tra draghi d’abisso che possedevano l’abisso.
The two young men in front were like the small young man himself, well-dressed. The lines of their frock-coats and silk hats had that luxuriant severity which makes the modern fop, hideous as he is, a favourite exercise of the modern draughtsman; that element which Mr. Max Beerbohm has admirably expressed in speaking of “certain congruities of dark cloth and the rigid perfection of linen.”
They walked with the gait of an affected snail, and they spoke at the longest intervals, dropping a sentence at about every sixth lamp-post.
They crawled on past the lamp-posts; their mien was so immovable that a fanciful description might almost say, that the lamp-posts crawled past the men, as in a dream. Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said:
“I want to get my hair cut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere where they cut your hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but it keeps on growing again.”
One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist.
“Why, here is a little place,” cried the small man, with a sort of imbecile cheerfulness, as the bright bulging window of a fashionable toilet-saloon glowed abruptly out of the foggy twilight. “Do you know, I often find hairdressers when I walk about London. I’ll lunch with you at Cicconani’s. You know, I’m awfully fond of hairdressers’ shops. They’re miles better than those nasty butchers’.” And he disappeared into the doorway.
The man called James continued to gaze after him, a monocle screwed into his eye.
“What the devil do you make of that fellow?” he asked his companion, a pale young man with a high nose.
The pale young man reflected conscientiously for some minutes, and then said:
“Had a knock on his head when he was a kid, I should think.”
“No, I don’t think it’s that,” replied the Honourable James Barker. “I’ve sometimes fancied he was a sort of artist, Lambert.”
“Bosh!” cried Mr. Lambert, briefly.
“I admit I can’t make him out,” resumed Barker, abstractedly; “he never opens his mouth without saying something so indescribably half-witted that to call him a fool seems the very feeblest attempt at characterization. But there’s another thing about him that’s rather funny. Do you know that he has the one collection of Japanese lacquer in Europe? Have you ever seen his books? All Greek poets and mediaeval French and that sort of thing. Have you ever been in his rooms? It’s like being inside an amethyst. And he moves about in all that and talks like…like a turnip.”
“Well, damn all books. Your blue books as well,” said the ingenuous Mr. Lambert, with a friendly simplicity. “You ought to understand such things. What do you make of him?”
“He’s beyond me,” returned Barker. “But if you asked me for my opinion, I should say he was a man with a taste for nonsense, as they call it…artistic fooling, and all that kind of thing. And I seriously believe that he has talked nonsense so much that he has half bewildered his own mind and doesn’t know the difference between sanity and insanity. He has gone round the mental world, so to speak, and found the place where the East and the West are one, and extreme idiocy is as good as sense. But I can’t explain these psychological games.”
“You can’t explain them to me,” replied Mr. Wilfrid Lambert, with candour.
As they passed up the long streets towards their restaurant the copper twilight cleared slowly to a pale yellow, and by the time they reached it they stood discernible in a tolerable winter daylight. The Honourable James Barker, one of the most powerful officials in the English Government (by this time a rigidly official one), was a lean and elegant young man, with a blank handsome face and bleak blue eyes. He had a great amount of intellectual capacity, of that peculiar kind which raises a man from throne to throne and lets him die loaded with honours without having either amused or enlightened the mind of a single man. Wilfrid Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared to impoverish the rest of his face, had also contributed little to the enlargement of the human spirit, but he had the honourable excuse of being a fool.
Lambert would have been called a silly man; Barker, with all his cleverness, might have been called a stupid man. But mere silliness and stupidity sank into insignificance in the presence of the awful and mysterious treasures of foolishness apparently stored up in the small figure that stood waiting for them outside Cicconani’s. The little man, whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compounded of a baby and an owl. His round head, round eyes, seemed to have been designed by nature playfully with a pair of compasses. His flat dark hair and preposterously long frock-coat gave him something of the look of a child’s “Noah.” When he entered a room of strangers, they mistook him for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, until he spoke, when they perceived that a boy would have been more intelligent.
“I have been waiting quite a long time,” said Quin, mildly. “It’s awfully funny I should see you coming up the street at last.”
“Why?” asked Lambert, staring. “You told us to come here yourself.”
“My mother used to tell people to come to places,” said the sage.
They were about to turn into the restaurant with a resigned air, when their eyes were caught by something in the street. The weather, though cold and blank, was now quite clear, and across the dull brown of the wood pavement and between the dull grey terraces was moving something not to be seen for miles around…not to be seen perhaps at that time in England…a man dressed in bright colours. A small crowd hung on the man’s heels.
He was a tall stately man, clad in a military uniform of brilliant green, splashed with great silver facings. From the shoulder swung a short green furred cloak, somewhat like that of a Hussar, the lining of which gleamed every now and then with a kind of tawny crimson. His breast glittered with medals; round his neck was the red ribbon and star of some foreign order; and a long straight sword, with a blazing hilt, trailed and clattered along the pavement. At this time the pacific and utilitarian development of Europe had relegated all such customs to the Museums. The only remaining force, the small but well-organized police, were attired in a sombre and hygienic manner. But even those who remembered the last Life Guards and Lancers who disappeared in 1912 must have known at a glance that this was not, and never had been, an English uniform; and this conviction would have been heightened by the yellow aquiline face, like Dante carved in bronze, which rose, crowned with white hair, out of the green military collar, a keen and distinguished, but not an English face.
I due giovanotti davanti erano, come il piccolo giovanotto stesso, ben vestiti. Le linee delle loro finanziere e dei loro cilindri avevano quella lussureggiante severità che rende il moderno bellimbusto, per quanto orribile, un esercizio prediletto del moderno disegnatore; quell’elemento che il signor Max Beerbohm ha mirabilmente espresso parlando di “certe congruità di panno scuro e la rigida perfezione della biancheria.”
Camminavano con l’andatura di una lumaca affettata, e parlavano a intervalli lunghissimi, lasciando cadere una frase ogni sei lampioni circa.
Strisciavano oltre i lampioni; il loro contegno era così immobile che una descrizione fantasiosa potrebbe quasi dire che erano i lampioni a strisciare oltre gli uomini, come in un sogno. Poi il piccolo uomo improvvisamente corse dietro a loro e disse:
“Voglio farmi tagliare i capelli. Dico, conoscete una botteguccia da qualche parte dove tagliano i capelli come si deve? Continuo a farmi tagliare i capelli, ma continuano a ricrescere.”
Uno degli uomini alti lo guardò con l’aria di un naturalista addolorato.
“Ma guarda, ecco un posticino,” gridò il piccolo uomo, con una sorta di imbecille allegria, mentre la vetrina luminosa e sporgente di un elegante salone di toeletta risplendeva bruscamente fuori dal crepuscolo nebbioso. “Sapete, trovo spesso parrucchieri quando cammino per Londra. Pranzerò con voi da Cicconani. Sapete, vado matto per le botteghe dei parrucchieri. Sono mille volte meglio di quei brutti macellai.” E scomparve nell’ingresso.
L’uomo chiamato James continuò a fissarlo, un monocolo avvitato nell’occhio.
“Che diavolo ne dici di quel tipo?” chiese al suo compagno, un giovane pallido dal naso alto.
Il giovane pallido rifletté coscienziosamente per qualche minuto, e poi disse:
“Ha preso una botta in testa da bambino, direi.”
“No, non credo sia quello,” rispose l’onorevole James Barker. “A volte ho immaginato che fosse una specie di artista, Lambert.”
“Sciocchezze!” gridò il signor Lambert, seccamente.
“Ammetto di non riuscire a decifrarlo,” riprese Barker, distrattamente; “non apre mai bocca senza dire qualcosa di così indescrivibilmente scempio che chiamarlo sciocco pare il più fiacco tentativo di caratterizzazione. Ma c’è un’altra cosa di lui piuttosto buffa. Sai che possiede l’unica collezione di lacca giapponese in Europa? Hai mai visto i suoi libri? Tutti poeti greci e francesi medievali e roba del genere. Sei mai stato nelle sue stanze? È come stare dentro un’ametista. E lui si muove in mezzo a tutto quello e parla come… come una rapa.”
“Beh, al diavolo tutti i libri. Anche i tuoi libri blu, del pari,” disse l’ingenuo signor Lambert, con amichevole semplicità. “Tu dovresti capire queste cose. Che ne fai di lui?”
“È al di là di me,” ribatté Barker. “Ma se mi chiedessi la mia opinione, direi che è un uomo con un debole per l’assurdo, come lo chiamano… la buffoneria artistica, e tutto quel genere di cose. E credo seriamente che abbia detto tante sciocchezze da aver mezzo sconvolto la propria mente e non sappia più la differenza tra senno e follia. Ha fatto il giro del mondo mentale, per così dire, e ha trovato il luogo dove l’Oriente e l’Occidente sono una cosa sola, e l’idiozia estrema è buona quanto il buon senso. Ma non so spiegare questi giochi psicologici.”
“A me non li sai spiegare,” rispose il signor Wilfrid Lambert, con candore.
Mentre risalivano le lunghe strade verso il loro ristorante il crepuscolo ramato si schiarì lentamente in un giallo pallido, e nel momento in cui lo raggiunsero si stagliavano distinguibili in una tollerabile luce di giorno invernale. L’onorevole James Barker, uno dei più potenti funzionari del Governo inglese (a questo punto rigidamente ufficiale), era un giovane magro ed elegante, dal volto inespressivo e bello e occhi azzurri e gelidi. Aveva una grande capacità intellettuale, di quella peculiare specie che eleva un uomo di trono in trono e lo lascia morire carico di onori senza aver mai né dilettato né illuminato la mente di un solo uomo. Wilfrid Lambert, il giovane dal naso che pareva impoverire il resto del suo volto, aveva anch’egli contribuito ben poco all’ampliamento dello spirito umano, ma aveva l’onorevole scusa di essere uno sciocco.
Lambert sarebbe stato definito un uomo sciocco; Barker, con tutta la sua astuzia, avrebbe potuto essere definito un uomo stupido. Ma la mera sciocchezza e stupidità sprofondavano nell’insignificanza in presenza dei terribili e misteriosi tesori di follia apparentemente accumulati nella piccola figura che stava ad attenderli fuori da Cicconani. Il piccolo uomo, il cui nome era Auberon Quin, aveva un aspetto composto da un neonato e da un gufo. La sua testa tonda, gli occhi tondi, sembravano essere stati disegnati dalla Natura per gioco con un paio di compassi. I suoi capelli piatti e scuri e la finanziera assurdamente lunga gli davano qualcosa dell’aria del “Noè” di un bambino. Quando entrava in una stanza di sconosciuti, lo scambiavano per un ragazzino, e volevano prenderlo sulle ginocchia, finché non parlava, quando si accorgevano che un ragazzino sarebbe stato più intelligente.
“Aspetto già da parecchio tempo,” disse Quin, mitemente. “È terribilmente buffo che finalmente vi veda arrivare su per la strada.”
“Perché?” chiese Lambert, fissandolo. “Ci hai detto tu stesso di venire qui.”
“Mia madre soleva dire alla gente di andare in certi posti,” disse il saggio.
Stavano per svoltare nel ristorante con aria rassegnata, quando i loro occhi furono attratti da qualcosa nella strada. Il tempo, benché freddo e spento, era ora del tutto sereno, e attraverso il bruno spento della pavimentazione di legno e tra le grigie e spente terrazze si muoveva qualcosa che non si vedeva per miglia all’intorno… che forse non si vedeva a quel tempo in Inghilterra… un uomo vestito di colori vivaci. Una piccola folla gli stava alle calcagna.
Era un uomo alto e maestoso, avvolto in un’uniforme militare di verde brillante, schizzata di grandi mostreggiature d’argento. Dalla spalla pendeva un corto mantello di pelliccia verde, un po’ come quello di un ussaro, la cui fodera balenava di tanto in tanto di una sorta di cremisi fulvo. Il petto gli scintillava di medaglie; intorno al collo aveva il nastro rosso e la stella di qualche ordine straniero; e una lunga e diritta spada, dall’elsa fiammeggiante, si trascinava e tintinnava lungo il selciato. A quel tempo lo sviluppo pacifico e utilitario dell’Europa aveva relegato tutte queste usanze nei Musei. L’unica forza rimasta, la piccola ma ben organizzata polizia, era agghindata in modo cupo e igienico. Ma perfino coloro che ricordavano le ultime Guardie a Cavallo e i Lancieri scomparsi nel 1912 devono aver capito a colpo d’occhio che quella non era, e non era mai stata, un’uniforme inglese; e questa convinzione sarebbe stata accresciuta dal volto giallo e aquilino, come Dante scolpito nel bronzo, che si levava, coronato di capelli bianchi, dal verde colletto militare, un volto acuto e distinto, ma non un volto inglese.
The magnificence with which the green-clad gentleman walked down the centre of the road would be something difficult to express in human language. For it was an ingrained simplicity and arrogance, something in the mere carriage of the head and body, which made ordinary moderns in the street stare after him; but it had comparatively little to do with actual conscious gestures or expression. In the matter of these merely temporary movements, the man appeared to be rather worried and inquisitive, but he was inquisitive with the inquisitiveness of a despot and worried as with the responsibilities of a god. The men who lounged and wondered behind him followed partly with an astonishment at his brilliant uniform, that is to say, partly because of that instinct which makes us all follow one who looks like a madman, but far more because of that instinct which makes all men follow (and worship) any one who chooses to behave like a king. He had to so sublime an extent that great quality of royalty…an almost imbecile unconsciousness of everybody, that people went after him as they do after kings…to see what would be the first thing or person he would take notice of. And all the time, as we have said, in spite of his quiet splendour, there was an air about him as if he were looking for somebody; an expression of inquiry.
Suddenly that expression of inquiry vanished, none could tell why, and was replaced by an expression of contentment. Amid the rapt attention of the mob of idlers, the magnificent green gentleman deflected himself from his direct course down the centre of the road and walked to one side of it. He came to a halt opposite to a large poster of Colman’s Mustard erected on a wooden hoarding. His spectators almost held their breath.
He took from a small pocket in his uniform a little penknife; with this he made a slash at the stretched paper. Completing the rest of the operation with his fingers, he tore off a strip or rag of paper, yellow in colour and wholly irregular in outline. Then for the first time the great being addressed his adoring onlookers:
“Can any one,” he said, with a pleasing foreign accent, “lend me a pin?”
Mr. Lambert, who happened to be nearest, and who carried innumerable pins for the purpose of attaching innumerable buttonholes, lent him one, which was received with extravagant but dignified bows, and hyperboles of thanks.
The gentleman in green, then, with every appearance of being gratified, and even puffed up, pinned the piece of yellow paper to the green silk and silver-lace adornments of his breast. Then he turned his eyes round again, searching and unsatisfied.
“Anything else I can do, sir?” asked Lambert, with the absurd politeness of the Englishman when once embarrassed.
“Red,” said the stranger, vaguely, “red.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I beg yours also, Senor,” said the stranger, bowing. “I was wondering whether any of you had any red about you.”
“Any red about us?…well, really…no, I don’t think I have…I used to carry a red bandanna once, but…”
“Barker,” asked Auberon Quin, suddenly, “where’s your red cockatoo? Where’s your red cockatoo?”
“What do you mean?” asked Barker, desperately. “What cockatoo? You’ve never seen me with any cockatoo.”
“I know,” said Auberon, vaguely mollified. “Where’s it been all the time?”
Barker swung round, not without resentment.
“I am sorry, sir,” he said, shortly but civilly, “none of us seem to have anything red to lend you. But why, if one may ask…”
“I thank you, Senor, it is nothing. I can, since there is nothing else, fulfil my own requirements.”
And standing for a second of thought with the penknife in his hand, he stabbed his left palm. The blood fell with so full a stream that it struck the stones without dripping. The foreigner pulled out his handkerchief and tore a piece from it with his teeth. The rag was immediately soaked in scarlet.
“Since you are so generous, Senor,” he said, “another pin, perhaps.”
Lambert held one out, with eyes protruding like a frog’s.
The red linen was pinned beside the yellow paper, and the foreigner took off his hat.
“I have to thank you all, gentlemen,” he said; and wrapping the remainder of the handkerchief round his bleeding hand, he resumed his walk with an overwhelming stateliness.
While all the rest paused, in some disorder, little Mr. Auberon Quin ran after the stranger and stopped him, with hat in hand. Considerably to everybody’s astonishment, he addressed him in the purest Spanish:
“Senor,” he said in that language, “pardon a hospitality, perhaps indiscreet, towards one who appears to be a distinguished, but a solitary guest in London. Will you do me and my friends, with whom you have held some conversation, the honour of lunching with us at the adjoining restaurant?”
The man in the green uniform had turned a fiery colour of pleasure at the mere sound of his own language, and he accepted the invitation with that profusion of bows which so often shows, in the case of the Southern races, the falsehood of the notion that ceremony has nothing to do with feeling.
“Senor,” he said, “your language is my own; but all my love for my people shall not lead me to deny to yours the possession of so chivalrous an entertainer. Let me say that the tongue is Spanish but the heart English.” And he passed with the rest into Cicconani’s.
“Now, perhaps,” said Barker, over the fish and sherry, intensely polite, but burning with curiosity, “perhaps it would be rude of me to ask why you did that?”
“Did what, Senor?” asked the guest, who spoke English quite well, though in a manner indefinably American.
“Well,” said the Englishman, in some confusion, “I mean tore a strip off a hoarding and… er… cut yourself… and…”
“To tell you that, Senor,” answered the other, with a certain sad pride, “involves merely telling you who I am. I am Juan del Fuego, President of Nicaragua.”
La magnificenza con cui il signore vestito di verde camminava giù per il centro della strada sarebbe qualcosa di difficile da esprimere in linguaggio umano. Poiché era una radicata semplicità e arroganza, qualcosa nel mero portamento della testa e del corpo, che faceva sì che i comuni moderni nella strada lo fissassero mentre passava; ma aveva relativamente poco a che fare con effettivi gesti o espressioni consapevoli. In fatto di questi movimenti meramente temporanei, l’uomo pareva piuttosto preoccupato e curioso, ma era curioso con la curiosità di un despota e preoccupato come per le responsabilità di un dio. Gli uomini che oziavano e si stupivano dietro di lui lo seguivano in parte con uno stupore per la sua brillante uniforme, vale a dire, in parte a causa di quell’istinto che ci fa tutti seguire chi ha l’aria di un pazzo, ma assai più a causa di quell’istinto che fa sì che tutti gli uomini seguano (e adorino) chiunque scelga di comportarsi come un re. Egli possedeva in modo così sublime quella gran qualità della regalità… una quasi imbecille inconsapevolezza di chiunque, che la gente gli andava dietro come si fa dietro ai re… per vedere quale sarebbe stata la prima cosa o persona a cui avrebbe prestato attenzione. E per tutto il tempo, come abbiamo detto, a dispetto del suo quieto splendore, c’era in lui un’aria come se stesse cercando qualcuno; un’espressione di ricerca.
Improvvisamente quell’espressione di ricerca svanì, nessuno poteva dire perché, e fu sostituita da un’espressione di contentezza. Tra l’attenzione rapita della folla di sfaccendati, il magnifico signore verde deviò dal suo corso diretto giù per il centro della strada e camminò verso un lato di essa. Si fermò di fronte a un grande manifesto della Senape Colman eretto su una palizzata di legno. I suoi spettatori quasi trattennero il fiato.
Trasse da una piccola tasca della sua uniforme un piccolo temperino; con esso fece un taglio nella carta tesa. Completando il resto dell’operazione con le dita, strappò una striscia o brandello di carta, giallo di colore e del tutto irregolare nei contorni. Poi per la prima volta il grande essere si rivolse ai suoi adoranti spettatori:
“Qualcuno di voi,” disse, con un gradevole accento straniero, “può prestarmi uno spillo?”
Il signor Lambert, che si dava il caso fosse il più vicino, e che portava innumerevoli spilli allo scopo di attaccare innumerevoli fiori all’occhiello, gliene prestò uno, che fu ricevuto con inchini stravaganti ma dignitosi, e iperboli di ringraziamento.
Il signore in verde, quindi, con ogni apparenza di essere gratificato, e persino gonfio di orgoglio, appuntò il pezzo di carta gialla alle guarnizioni di seta verde e trina d’argento del suo petto. Poi volse di nuovo gli occhi all’intorno, cercando e insoddisfatto.
“C’è altro che posso fare, signore?” chiese Lambert, con l’assurda cortesia dell’inglese quando una volta è imbarazzato.
“Rosso,” disse lo straniero, vagamente, “rosso.”
“Chiedo scusa?”
“Chiedo scusa anch’io, Senor,” disse lo straniero, inchinandosi. “Mi stavo chiedendo se qualcuno di voi avesse addosso del rosso.”
“Del rosso addosso a noi?… Beh, davvero… no, non credo di averne… una volta portavo un fazzoletto rosso a pois, ma…”
“Barker,” chiese Auberon Quin, improvvisamente, “dov’è il tuo cacatua rosso? Dov’è il tuo cacatua rosso?”
“Che cosa vuoi dire?” chiese Barker, disperatamente. “Che cacatua? Non mi hai mai visto con nessun cacatua.”
“Lo so,” disse Auberon, vagamente rabbonito. “Dov’è stato per tutto il tempo?”
Barker si voltò di scatto, non senza risentimento.
“Mi dispiace, signore,” disse, brevemente ma cortesemente, “nessuno di noi pare avere qualcosa di rosso da prestarle. Ma perché, se è lecito chiedere…”
“La ringrazio, Senor, non è nulla. Posso, dal momento che non c’è altro, soddisfare da me le mie esigenze.”
E rimanendo un secondo in pensiero con il temperino in mano, si pugnalò il palmo sinistro. Il sangue cadde con un fiotto così pieno che colpì i selci senza gocciolare. Lo straniero tirò fuori il fazzoletto e ne strappò un pezzo con i denti. Il brandello si intrise all’istante di scarlatto.
“Poiché lei è così generoso, Senor,” disse, “un altro spillo, forse.”
Lambert ne porse uno, con gli occhi sporgenti come quelli di una rana.
Il lino rosso fu appuntato accanto alla carta gialla, e lo straniero si tolse il cappello.
“Devo ringraziarvi tutti, signori,” disse; e avvolgendo il rimanente del fazzoletto intorno alla mano sanguinante, riprese il suo cammino con una maestà travolgente.
Mentre tutti gli altri si fermavano, in un certo scompiglio, il piccolo signor Auberon Quin corse dietro allo straniero e lo fermò, con il cappello in mano. Con considerevole stupore di tutti, gli si rivolse nel più puro spagnolo:
“Senor,” disse in quella lingua, “perdoni un’ospitalità, forse indiscreta, verso uno che sembra essere un ospite illustre, ma solitario, a Londra. Vorrà fare a me e ai miei amici, con cui ha scambiato qualche parola, l’onore di pranzare con noi nell’attiguo ristorante?”
L’uomo nell’uniforme verde era diventato di un ardente colore di piacere al mero suono della propria lingua, e accettò l’invito con quella profusione di inchini che così spesso mostra, nel caso delle razze meridionali, la falsità dell’idea che la cerimonia non abbia nulla a che fare con il sentimento.
“Senor,” disse, “la sua lingua è la mia; ma tutto il mio amore per il mio popolo non mi indurrà a negare al suo il possesso di un anfitrione così cavalleresco. Mi permetta di dire che la lingua è spagnola ma il cuore inglese.” E passò con gli altri da Cicconani.
“Ora, forse,” disse Barker, davanti al pesce e allo sherry, intensamente cortese, ma bruciante di curiosità, “forse sarebbe scortese da parte mia chiedere perché ha fatto quello?”
“Fatto cosa, Senor?” chiese l’ospite, che parlava inglese piuttosto bene, sebbene in un modo indefinibilmente americano.
“Beh,” disse l’inglese, con una certa confusione, “intendo aver strappato una striscia da una palizzata e… ehm… essersi tagliato… e…”
“Per dirle questo, Senor,” rispose l’altro, con un certo triste orgoglio, “occorre semplicemente dirle chi sono. Sono Juan del Fuego, Presidente del Nicaragua.”
The manner with which the President of Nicaragua leant back and drank his sherry showed that to him this explanation covered all the facts observed and a great deal more. Barker’s brow, however, was still a little clouded.
“And the yellow paper,” he began, with anxious friendliness, “and the red rag…”
“The yellow paper and the red rag,” said Fuego, with indescribable grandeur, “are the colours of Nicaragua.”
“But Nicaragua…” began Barker, with great hesitation, “Nicaragua is no longer a…”
“Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has been annexed like Jerusalem,” cried the old man, with amazing fire. “The Yankee and the German and the brute powers of modernity have trampled it with the hoofs of oxen. But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea.”
Auberon Quin suggested timidly, “A brilliant idea.”
“Yes,” said the foreigner, snatching at the word. “You are right, generous Englishman. An idea brilliant, a burning thought. Senor, you asked me why, in my desire to see the colours of my country, I snatched at paper and blood. Can you not understand the ancient sanctity of colours? The Church has her symbolic colours. And think of what colours mean to us…think of the position of one like myself, who can see nothing but those two colours, nothing but the red and the yellow. To me all shapes are equal, all common and noble things are in a democracy of combination. Wherever there is a field of marigolds and the red cloak of an old woman, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a field of poppies and a yellow patch of sand, there is Nicaragua, Wherever there is a lemon and a red sunset, there is my country. Wherever I see a red pillar-box and a yellow sunset, there my heart beats. Blood and a splash of mustard can be my heraldry. If there be yellow mud and red mud in the same ditch, it is better to me than white stars.”
“And if,” said Quin, with equal enthusiasm, “there should happen to be yellow wine and red wine at the same lunch, you could not confine yourself to sherry. Let me order some Burgundy, and complete, as it were, a sort of Nicaraguan heraldry in your inside.”
Barker was fiddling with his knife, and was evidently making up his mind to say something, with the intense nervousness of the amiable Englishman.
“I am to understand, then,” he said at last, with a cough, “that you, ahem, were the President of Nicaragua when it made its…er…one must, of course, agree…its quite heroic resistance to…er…”
The ex-President of Nicaragua waved his hand.
“You need not hesitate in speaking to me,” he said. “I am quite fully aware that the whole tendency of the world of to-day is against Nicaragua and against me. I shall not consider it any diminution of your evident courtesy if you say what you think of the misfortunes that have laid my republic in ruins.”
Barker looked immeasurably relieved and gratified.
“You are most generous, President,” he said, with some hesitation over the title, “and I will take advantage of your generosity to express the doubts which, I must confess, we moderns have about such things as…er…the Nicaraguan independence.”
“So your sympathies are,” said Del Fuego, quite calmly, “with the big nation which…”
“Pardon me, pardon me, President,” said Barker, warmly; “my sympathies are with no nation. You misunderstand, I think, the modern intellect. We do not disapprove of the fire and extravagance of such commonwealths as yours only to become more extravagant on a larger scale. We do not condemn Nicaragua because we think Britain ought to be more Nicaraguan. We do not discourage small nationalities because we wish large nationalities to have all their smallness, all their uniformity of outlook, all their exaggeration of spirit. If I differ with the greatest respect from your Nicaraguan enthusiasm, it is not because a nation or ten nations were against you; it is because civilization was against you. We moderns believe in a great cosmopolitan civilization, one which shall include all the talents of all the absorbed peoples…”
“The Senor will forgive me,” said the President. “May I ask the Senor how, under ordinary circumstances, he catches a wild horse?”
“I never catch a wild horse,” replied Barker, with dignity.
“Precisely,” said the other; “and there ends your absorption of the talents. That is what I complain of your cosmopolitanism. When you say you want all peoples to unite, you really mean that you want all peoples to unite to learn the tricks of your people. If the Bedouin Arab does not know how to read, some English missionary or schoolmaster must be sent to teach him to read, but no one ever says, ‘This schoolmaster does not know how to ride on a camel; let us pay a Bedouin to teach him.’ You say your civilization will include all talents. Will it? Do you really mean to say that at the moment when the Esquimaux has learnt to vote for a County Council, you will have learnt to spear a walrus? I recur to the example I gave. In Nicaragua we had a way of catching wild horses…by lassoing the fore-feet-which was supposed to be the best in South America. If you are going to include all the talents, go and do it. If not, permit me to say, what I have always said, that something went from the world when Nicaragua was civilized.”
“Something, perhaps,” replied Barker, “but that something a mere barbarian dexterity. I do not know that I could chip flints as well as a primeval man, but I know that civilization can make these knives which are better, and I trust to civilization.”
“You have good authority,” answered the Nicaraguan. “Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours?”
“I think you do not quite understand, President, what ours is,” answered Barker. “You judge it rather as if England was still a poor and pugnacious island; you have been long out of Europe. Many things have happened.”
Il modo con cui il Presidente del Nicaragua si appoggiò all’indietro e bevve il suo sherry mostrava che per lui questa spiegazione copriva tutti i fatti osservati e molto di più. La fronte di Barker, tuttavia, era ancora un po’ rannuvolata.
“E la carta gialla,” cominciò, con ansiosa affabilità, “e il brandello rosso…”
“La carta gialla e il brandello rosso,” disse Fuego, con indescrivibile grandezza, “sono i colori del Nicaragua.”
“Ma il Nicaragua…” cominciò Barker, con grande esitazione, “il Nicaragua non è più un…”
“Il Nicaragua è stato conquistato come Atene. Il Nicaragua è stato annesso come Gerusalemme,” gridò il vecchio, con stupefacente fuoco. “Lo yankee e il tedesco e le brutali potenze della modernità l’hanno calpestato con gli zoccoli dei buoi. Ma il Nicaragua non è morto. Il Nicaragua è un’idea.”
Auberon Quin suggerì timidamente: “Un’idea brillante.”
“Sì,” disse lo straniero, afferrando la parola. “Ha ragione, generoso inglese. Un’idea brillante, un pensiero ardente. Senor, mi ha chiesto perché, nel mio desiderio di vedere i colori del mio paese, ho afferrato la carta e il sangue. Non riesce a comprendere l’antica sacralità dei colori? La Chiesa ha i suoi colori simbolici. E pensi a cosa significano i colori per noi… pensi alla condizione di uno come me, che non riesce a vedere nulla se non quei due colori, nulla se non il rosso e il giallo. Per me tutte le forme sono uguali, tutte le cose comuni e nobili sono in una democrazia di combinazione. Ovunque vi sia un campo di calendule e il mantello rosso di una vecchia, là è il Nicaragua. Ovunque vi sia un campo di papaveri e una gialla chiazza di sabbia, là è il Nicaragua. Ovunque vi sia un limone e un rosso tramonto, là è il mio paese. Ovunque io veda una rossa cassetta delle lettere e un giallo tramonto, là batte il mio cuore. Il sangue e uno schizzo di senape possono essere la mia araldica. Se vi fosse fango giallo e fango rosso nello stesso fosso, per me sarebbe meglio delle bianche stelle.”
“E se,” disse Quin, con eguale entusiasmo, “capitasse che vi fosse vino giallo e vino rosso allo stesso pranzo, non potrebbe limitarsi allo sherry. Mi permetta di ordinare del Borgogna, e di completare, per così dire, una sorta di araldica nicaraguense nel suo interno.”
Barker giocherellava con il coltello, ed era evidentemente sul punto di dire qualcosa, con l’intensa nervosità dell’ amabile inglese.
“Devo intendere, dunque,” disse infine, con un colpo di tosse, “che lei, ehm, era il Presidente del Nicaragua quando esso oppose la sua… ehm… si deve, naturalmente, convenire… la sua resistenza a dir poco eroica a… ehm…”
L’ex Presidente del Nicaragua agitò la mano.
“Non deve esitare a parlarmi,” disse. “Sono pienamente consapevole che l’intera tendenza del mondo d’oggi è contro il Nicaragua e contro di me. Non riterrò affatto una diminuzione della sua evidente cortesia se dirà ciò che pensa delle sventure che hanno ridotto in rovina la mia repubblica.”
Barker parve immensamente sollevato e gratificato.
“Lei è oltremodo generoso, Presidente,” disse, con una certa esitazione sul titolo, “e approfitterò della sua generosità per esprimere i dubbi che, devo confessarlo, noi moderni nutriamo su cose come… ehm… l’indipendenza nicaraguense.”
“Così le sue simpatie sono,” disse Del Fuego, con perfetta calma, “per la grande nazione che…”
“Mi perdoni, mi perdoni, Presidente,” disse Barker, con calore; “le mie simpatie non sono per alcuna nazione. Lei fraintende, credo, l’intelletto moderno. Non disapproviamo il fuoco e la stravaganza di comunità come la sua solo per diventare più stravaganti su scala più grande. Non condanniamo il Nicaragua perché pensiamo che la Gran Bretagna dovrebbe essere più nicaraguense. Non scoraggiamo le piccole nazionalità perché desideriamo che le grandi nazionalità abbiano tutta la loro piccolezza, tutta la loro uniformità di vedute, tutta la loro esagerazione di spirito. Se dissento con il massimo rispetto dal suo entusiasmo nicaraguense, non è perché una nazione o dieci nazioni fossero contro di lei; è perché la civiltà era contro di lei. Noi moderni crediamo in una grande civiltà cosmopolita, una che includa tutti i talenti di tutti i popoli assorbiti…”
“Il Senor mi perdoni,” disse il Presidente. “Posso chiedere al Senor come, in circostanze ordinarie, cattura un cavallo selvaggio?”
“Non catturo mai un cavallo selvaggio,” rispose Barker, con dignità.
“Precisamente,” disse l’altro; “e qui finisce il suo assorbimento dei talenti. È di questo che mi lamento del suo cosmopolitismo. Quando dice di volere che tutti i popoli si uniscano, in realtà intende che vuole che tutti i popoli si uniscano per imparare i trucchi del suo popolo. Se l’arabo beduino non sa leggere, qualche missionario inglese o maestro di scuola dev’essere mandato a insegnargli a leggere, ma nessuno dice mai: ‘Questo maestro non sa cavalcare un cammello; paghiamo un beduino perché glielo insegni.’ Lei dice che la sua civiltà includerà tutti i talenti. Sarà così? Vuole davvero dire che nel momento in cui l’esquimese ha imparato a votare per un Consiglio di Contea, lei avrà imparato a infilzare un tricheco? Torno all’esempio che ho dato. In Nicaragua avevamo un modo di catturare i cavalli selvaggi… facendo il laccio alle zampe anteriori, che si riteneva fosse il migliore del Sud America. Se avete intenzione di includere tutti i talenti, andate e fatelo. In caso contrario, permettetemi di dire, come ho sempre detto, che qualcosa se ne andò dal mondo quando il Nicaragua fu civilizzato.”
“Qualcosa, forse,” rispose Barker, “ma quel qualcosa una mera destrezza da barbaro. Non so se saprei scheggiare le selci bene quanto un uomo primevo, ma so che la civiltà sa fabbricare questi coltelli che sono migliori, e io mi affido alla civiltà.”
“Ha una buona autorità,” rispose il nicaraguense. “Molti uomini astuti come lei si sono affidati alla civiltà. Molti astuti babilonesi, molti astuti egiziani, molti uomini astuti alla fine di Roma. Può dirmi, in un mondo che è flagrante per i fallimenti della civiltà, cosa vi sia di particolarmente immortale nella vostra?”
“Credo che lei non comprenda del tutto, Presidente, cosa sia la nostra,” rispose Barker. “Lei la giudica piuttosto come se l’Inghilterra fosse ancora un’isola povera e battagliera; lei è stato a lungo fuori dall’Europa. Molte cose sono accadute.”
“And what,” asked the other, “would you call the summary of those things?”
“The summary of those things,” answered Barker, with great animation, “is that we are rid of the superstitions, and in becoming so we have not merely become rid of the superstitions which have been most frequently and most enthusiastically so described. The superstition of big nationalities is bad, but the superstition of small nationalities is worse. The superstition of reverencing our own country is bad, but the superstition of reverencing other people’s countries is worse. It is so everywhere, and in a hundred ways. The superstition of monarchy is bad, and the superstition of aristocracy is bad, but the superstition of democracy is the worst of all.”
The old gentleman opened his eyes with some surprise.
“Are you, then,” he said, “no longer a democracy in England?”
Barker laughed.
“The situation invites paradox,” he said. “We are, in a sense, the purest democracy. We have become a despotism. Have you not noticed how continually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the decay of democracy. It is simply its fulfilment. Why take the trouble to number and register and enfranchise all the innumerable John Robinsons, when you can take one John Robinson with the same intellect or lack of intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? The old idealistic republicans used to found democracy on the idea that all men were equally intelligent. Believe me, the sane and enduring democracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Why should we not choose out of them one as much as another? All that we want for Government is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidly look over some petitions and sign some proclamations. To think what time was wasted in arguing about the House of Lords, Tories saying it ought to be preserved because it was clever, and Radicals saying it ought to be destroyed because it was stupid, and all the time no one saw that it was right because it was stupid, because that chance mob of ordinary men thrown there by accident of blood, were a great democratic protest against the Lower House, against the eternal insolence of the aristocracy of talents. We have established now in England, the thing towards which all systems have dimly groped, the dull popular despotism without illusions. We want one man at the head of our State, not because he is brilliant or virtuous, but because he is one man and not a chattering crowd. To avoid the possible chance of hereditary diseases or such things, we have abandoned hereditary monarchy. The King of England is chosen like a juryman upon an official rotation list. Beyond that the whole system is quietly despotic, and we have not found it raise a murmur.”
“Do you really mean,” asked the President, incredulously, “that you choose any ordinary man that comes to hand and make him despot…that you trust to the chance of some alphabetical list…”
“And why not?” cried Barker. “Did not half the historical nations trust to the chance of the eldest sons of eldest sons, and did not half of them get on tolerably well? To have a perfect system is impossible; to have a system is indispensable. All hereditary monarchies were a matter of luck: so are alphabetical monarchies. Can you find a deep philosophical meaning in the difference between the Stuarts and the Hanoverians? Believe me, I will undertake to find a deep philosophical meaning in the contrast between the dark tragedy of the A’s, and the solid success of the B’s.”
“And you risk it?” asked the other. “Though the man may be a tyrant or a cynic or a criminal?”
“We risk it,” answered Barker, with a perfect placidity. “Suppose he is a tyrant…he is still a check on a hundred tyrants. Suppose he is a cynic, it is to his interest to govern well. Suppose he is a criminal…by removing poverty and substituting power, we put a check on his criminality. In short, by substituting despotism we have put a total check on one criminal and a partial check on all the rest.”
The Nicaraguan old gentleman leaned over with a queer expression in his eyes.
“My church, sir,” he said, “has taught me to respect faith. I do not wish to speak with any disrespect of yours, however fantastic. But do you really mean that you will trust to the ordinary man, the man who may happen to come next, as a good despot?”
“I do,” said Barker, simply. “He may not be a good man. But he will be a good despot. For when he comes to a mere business routine of government he will endeavour to do ordinary justice. Do we not assume the same thing in a jury?”
The old President smiled.
“I don’t know,” he said, “that I have any particular objection in detail to your excellent scheme of Government. My only objection is a quite personal one. It is, that if I were asked whether I would belong to it, I should ask first of all, if I was not permitted, as an alternative, to be a toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot argue with the choice of the soul.”
“Of the soul,” said Barker, knitting his brows, “I cannot pretend to say anything, but speaking in the interests of the public…”
Mr. Auberon Quin rose suddenly to his feet.
“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “I will step out for a moment into the air.”
“I’m so sorry, Auberon,” said Lambert, good-naturedly; “do you feel bad?”
“Not bad exactly,” said Auberon, with self-restraint; “rather good, if anything. Strangely and richly good. The fact is I want to reflect a little on those beautiful words that have just been uttered. ‘Speaking,’ yes, that was the phrase, ‘speaking in the interests of the public.’ One cannot get the honey from such things without being alone for a little.”
“Is he really off his chump, do you think?” asked Lambert.
The old President looked after him with queerly vigilant eyes.
“He is a man, I think,” he said, “who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man.”
Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some macaroni to his mouth.
“Dangerous!” he said. “You don’t know little Quin, sir!”
“Every man is dangerous,” said the old man, without moving, “who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself.”
And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowing profoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense and sombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly in lodgings in Soho.
… . .
Drowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little figure shaking and quaking, with what might at first sight have seemed terror or ague; but which was really that strange malady, a lonely laughter. He was repeating over and over to himself with a rich accent “But speaking in the interests of the public…”
“E come,” chiese l’altro, “chiamerebbe il compendio di quelle cose?”
“Il compendio di quelle cose,” rispose Barker, con grande animazione, “è che ci siamo liberati delle superstizioni, e nel farlo non ci siamo liberati semplicemente delle superstizioni che sono state più di frequente e più entusiasticamente descritte come tali. La superstizione delle grandi nazionalità è cattiva, ma la superstizione delle piccole nazionalità è peggiore. La superstizione di riverire il nostro stesso paese è cattiva, ma la superstizione di riverire i paesi altrui è peggiore. È così ovunque, e in cento modi. La superstizione della monarchia è cattiva, e la superstizione dell’aristocrazia è cattiva, ma la superstizione della democrazia è la peggiore di tutte.”
Il vecchio signore spalancò gli occhi con una certa sorpresa.
“Allora voi,” disse, “non siete più una democrazia in Inghilterra?”
Barker rise.
“La situazione invita al paradosso,” disse. “Noi siamo, in un certo senso, la più pura democrazia. Siamo diventati un dispotismo. Non ha notato con quanta continuità nella storia la democrazia diventa dispotismo? La gente la chiama il decadimento della democrazia. È semplicemente il suo compimento. Perché prendersi la briga di numerare e registrare e concedere il voto a tutti gli innumerevoli John Robinson, quando si può prendere un solo John Robinson con lo stesso intelletto o mancanza d’intelletto di tutti gli altri, e farla finita? I vecchi repubblicani idealisti solevano fondare la democrazia sull’idea che tutti gli uomini fossero egualmente intelligenti. Mi creda, la sana e duratura democrazia è fondata sul fatto che tutti gli uomini sono egualmente idioti. Perché non dovremmo scegliere fra loro l’uno tanto quanto l’altro? Tutto ciò che vogliamo per il Governo è un uomo non criminale né pazzo, che sappia scorrere rapidamente qualche petizione e firmare qualche proclama. Pensare quanto tempo fu sprecato a discutere della Camera dei Lord, i Tory dicendo che andava conservata perché era astuta, e i Radicali dicendo che andava distrutta perché era stupida, e per tutto il tempo nessuno vide che era giusta perché era stupida, perché quella casuale folla di uomini comuni gettati là per accidente di sangue, erano una grande protesta democratica contro la Camera Bassa, contro l’eterna insolenza dell’aristocrazia dei talenti. Abbiamo ormai stabilito in Inghilterra la cosa verso cui tutti i sistemi hanno oscuramente brancolato, il dozzinale dispotismo popolare senza illusioni. Vogliamo un uomo alla testa del nostro Stato, non perché sia brillante o virtuoso, ma perché è un solo uomo e non una folla ciarliera. Per evitare l’eventuale rischio di malattie ereditarie o cose simili, abbiamo abbandonato la monarchia ereditaria. Il Re d’Inghilterra è scelto come un giurato da una lista ufficiale a rotazione. Oltre a ciò l’intero sistema è quietamente dispotico, e non abbiamo trovato che sollevi un mormorio.”
“Vuol davvero dire,” chiese il Presidente, incredulo, “che voi scegliete un uomo qualunque che capiti a tiro e ne fate un despota… che vi affidate al caso di una qualche lista alfabetica…”
“E perché no?” gridò Barker. “Non si affidò metà delle nazioni storiche al caso dei figli primogeniti di figli primogeniti, e non se la cavò metà di esse discretamente bene? Avere un sistema perfetto è impossibile; avere un sistema è indispensabile. Tutte le monarchie ereditarie erano una questione di fortuna: così lo sono le monarchie alfabetiche. Sa trovare un profondo significato filosofico nella differenza tra gli Stuart e gli Hannover? Mi creda, mi impegno a trovare un profondo significato filosofico nel contrasto tra la cupa tragedia delle A e il solido successo delle B.”
“E lo rischia?” chiese l’altro. “Anche se l’uomo può essere un tiranno o un cinico o un criminale?”
“Lo rischiamo,” rispose Barker, con perfetta placidità. “Supponga che sia un tiranno… è pur sempre un freno a cento tiranni. Supponga che sia un cinico, è nel suo interesse governare bene. Supponga che sia un criminale… rimuovendo la povertà e sostituendovi il potere, poniamo un freno alla sua criminalità. In breve, sostituendovi il dispotismo abbiamo posto un freno totale a un criminale e un freno parziale a tutti gli altri.”
Il vecchio signore nicaraguense si sporse con una strana espressione negli occhi.
“La mia chiesa, signore,” disse, “mi ha insegnato a rispettare la Fede. Non desidero parlare con alcuna mancanza di rispetto della sua, per quanto fantastica. Ma vuol davvero dire che si affiderà all’uomo comune, l’uomo che può capitare per primo, come a un buon despota?”
“Sì,” disse Barker, semplicemente. “Può non essere un buon uomo. Ma sarà un buon despota. Poiché quando si troverà davanti a una mera routine amministrativa di governo si sforzerà di rendere ordinaria giustizia. Non presumiamo forse la stessa cosa in una giuria?”
Il vecchio Presidente sorrise.
“Non so,” disse, “di avere alcuna particolare obiezione nei dettagli al suo eccellente schema di governo. La mia unica obiezione è del tutto personale. È che, se mi si chiedesse se volessi farne parte, chiederei prima di tutto, se non mi fosse permesso, in alternativa, di essere un rospo in un fosso. È tutto. Non si può discutere con la scelta dell’anima.”
“Dell’anima,” disse Barker, aggrottando le sopracciglia, “non posso pretendere di dire alcunché, ma parlando nell’interesse del pubblico…”
Il signor Auberon Quin si alzò improvvisamente in piedi.
“Se volete scusarmi, signori,” disse, “farò un salto fuori per un momento a prendere aria.”
“Mi dispiace tanto, Auberon,” disse Lambert, bonariamente; “ti senti male?”
“Non proprio male,” disse Auberon, con autocontrollo; “piuttosto bene, semmai. Stranamente e riccamente bene. Il fatto è che voglio riflettere un poco su quelle belle parole che sono state appena pronunciate. ‘Parlando’, sì, era questa la frase, ‘parlando nell’interesse del pubblico.’ Non si può cavare il miele da tali cose senza restare soli per un poco.”
“Credete che sia davvero uscito di senno?” chiese Lambert.
Il vecchio Presidente lo seguì con lo sguardo con occhi stranamente vigili.
“È un uomo, credo,” disse, “a cui non importa nulla se non uno scherzo. È un uomo pericoloso.”
Lambert rise nell’atto di portarsi alla bocca dei maccheroni.
“Pericoloso!” disse. “Lei non conosce il piccolo Quin, signore!”
“Ogni uomo è pericoloso,” disse il vecchio, senza muoversi, “a cui importa soltanto di una cosa. Un tempo io stesso ero pericoloso.”
E con un piacevole sorriso finì il suo caffè e si alzò, inchinandosi profondamente, uscì nella nebbia, che era di nuovo diventata densa e fosca. Tre giorni dopo seppero che era morto quietamente in un alloggio a Soho.
… . .
Annegata da qualche altra parte nell’oscuro mare di nebbia c’era una piccola figura che tremava e trepidava, con quella che a prima vista poteva sembrare terrore o febbre; ma che era in realtà quella strana malattia, un solitario ridere. Ripeteva a se stesso più e più volte con un ricco accento “Ma parlando nell’interesse del pubblico…”
CHAPTER III
“IN a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea,” said Auberon Quin, “there was a Nonconformist minister who had never been to Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strange look in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for they heard that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearing patent leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be the minister at all. But in the dead man’s pocket there was a return ticket to Maidstone.”
There was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and Lambert went swinging on through the slushy grass of Kensington Gardens. Then Auberon resumed.
“That story,” he said reverently, “is the test of humour.”
They walked on further and faster, wading through higher grass as they began to climb a slope.
“I perceive,” continued Auberon, “that you have passed the test, and consider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing. Only coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The great anecdote is received in silence, like a benediction. You felt pretty benedicted, didn’t you, Barker?”
“I saw the point,” said Barker, somewhat loftily.
“Do you know,” said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, “I have lots of stories as good as that. Listen to this one.”
And he slightly cleared his throat.
“Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist. ‘There,’ people of wide experience would say, ‘there goes the sallowest bimetallist in Cheshire.’ Once this was said so that he overheard it: it was said by an actuary, under a sunset of mauve and grey. Polycarp turned upon him. ‘Sallow!’ he cried fiercely, ‘sallow! Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes.’ It was said that no actuary ever made game of Dr. Polycarp again.”
Barker nodded with a simple sagacity. Lambert only grunted.
“Here is another,” continued the insatiable Quin. “In a hollow of the grey-green hills of rainy Ireland, lived an old, old woman, whose uncle was always Cambridge at the Boat Race. But in her grey-green hollows, she knew nothing of this: she didn’t know that there was a Boat Race. Also she did not know that she had an uncle. She had heard of nobody at all, except of George the First, of whom she had heard (I know not why), and in whose historical memory she put her simple trust. And by and by, in God’s good time, it was discovered that this uncle of hers was not really her uncle, and they came and told her so. She smiled through her tears, and said only, ‘Virtue is its own reward.’ ”
Again there was a silence, and then Lambert said:
“It seems a bit mysterious.”
“Mysterious!” cried the other. “The true humour is mysterious. Do you not realize the chief incident of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?”
“And what’s that?” asked Lambert, shortly.
“It is very simple,” replied the other. “Hitherto it was the ruin of a joke that people did not see it. Now it is the sublime victory of a joke that people do not see it. Humour, my friends, is the one sanctity remaining to mankind. It is the one thing you are thoroughly afraid of. Look at that tree.”
His interlocutors looked vaguely towards a beech that leant out towards them from the ridge of the hill.
“If,” said Mr. Quin, “I were to say that you did not see the great truths of science exhibited by that tree, though they stared any man of intellect in the face, what would you think or say? You would merely regard me as a pedant with some unimportant theory about vegetable cells. If I were to say that you did not see in that tree the vile mismanagement of local politics, you would dismiss me as a Socialist crank with some particular fad about public parks. If I were to say that you were guilty of the supreme blasphemy of looking at that tree and not seeing in it a new religion, a special revelation of God, you would simply say I was a mystic, and think no more about me. But if…and he lifted a pontifical hand…if I say that you cannot see the humour of that tree, and that I see the humour of it…my God! you will roll about at my feet.”
He paused a moment, and then resumed.
“Yes; a sense of humour, a weird and delicate sense of humour, is the new religion of mankind! It is towards that men will strain themselves with the asceticism of saints. Exercises, spiritual exercises, will be set in it. It will be asked, ‘Can you see the humour of this iron railing?’ or ‘Can you see the humour of this field of corn? Can you see the humour of the stars? Can you see the humour of the sunsets?’ How often I have laughed myself to sleep over a violet sunset.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Barker, with an intelligent embarrassment.
“Let me tell you another story. How often it happens that the M.P.’s for Essex are less punctual than one would suppose. The least punctual Essex M.P., perhaps, was James Wilson, who said, in the very act of plucking a poppy…”
Lambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the ground in a defiant attitude.
“Auberon,” he said, “chuck it. I won’t stand it. It’s all bosh.”
Both men stared at him, for there was something very explosive about the words, as if they had been corked up painfully for a long time.
“You have,” began Quin, “no…”
“I don’t care a curse,” said Lambert, violently, “whether I have ‘a delicate sense of humour’ or not. I won’t stand it. It’s all a confounded fraud. There’s no joke in those infernal tales at all. You know there isn’t as well as I do.”
“Well,” replied Quin, slowly, “it is true that I, with my rather gradual mental processes, did not see any joke in them. But the finer sense of Barker perceived it.”
Barker turned a fierce red, but continued to stare at the horizon.
CAPITOLO III
“In un piccolo giardino quadrato di rose gialle, presso il mare,” disse Auberon Quin, “c’era un pastore anticonformista che non era mai stato a Wimbledon. La sua famiglia non capiva il suo dolore né lo strano sguardo nei suoi occhi. Ma un giorno si pentirono della loro trascuratezza, perché udirono che un corpo era stato trovato sulla riva, malconcio, ma che calzava stivali di vernice. Come volle il caso, si scoprì che non era affatto il pastore. Ma nella tasca del morto c’era un biglietto di andata e ritorno per Maidstone.”
Ci fu una breve pausa mentre Quin e i suoi amici Barker e Lambert proseguivano dondolando attraverso l’erba fangosa dei Kensington Gardens. Poi Auberon riprese.
“Quella storia,” disse con reverenza, “è la prova dell’umorismo.”
Camminarono oltre, più lontano e più svelti, guadando erba più alta man mano che cominciavano a salire un pendio.
“Mi accorgo,” continuò Auberon, “che avete superato la prova, e trovate l’aneddoto atrocemente divertente; giacché non dite nulla. Solo l’umorismo grossolano è accolto con applausi da osteria. Il grande aneddoto è accolto in silenzio, come una benedizione. Ti sei sentito proprio benedetto, vero, Barker?”
“Ho colto il punto,” disse Barker, un po’ altezzosamente.
“Sai,” disse Quin, con una sorta di idiota gaiezza, “ho un mucchio di storie buone come quella. Ascolta questa.”
E si schiarì lievemente la gola.
“Il dottor Policarpo era, come tutti sapete, un bimetallista di un giallore inconsueto. ‘Ecco,’ dicevano le persone di larga esperienza, ‘ecco che passa il più giallo bimetallista del Cheshire.’ Una volta ciò fu detto in modo che egli lo udì: fu detto da un attuario, sotto un tramonto di malva e grigio. Policarpo si voltò verso di lui. ‘Giallo!’ gridò con furia, ‘giallo! Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes.’ Si dice che nessun attuario si prese mai più gioco del dottor Policarpo.”
Barker annuì con una semplice sagacia. Lambert si limitò a un grugnito.
“Eccone un’altra,” continuò l’insaziabile Quin. “In un avvallamento delle colline grigioverdi della piovosa Irlanda, viveva una vecchia, vecchissima donna, il cui zio era sempre Cambridge alla Regata. Ma nei suoi avvallamenti grigioverdi, ella nulla sapeva di questo: non sapeva che ci fosse una Regata. E neppure sapeva di avere uno zio. Non aveva sentito parlare di nessuno, tranne che di Giorgio Primo, di cui aveva sentito parlare (non so perché), e nella cui storica memoria riponeva la sua semplice fiducia. E a poco a poco, nel buon tempo di Dio, si scoprì che questo suo zio non era in realtà suo zio, e vennero a dirglielo. Ella sorrise tra le sue lacrime, e disse soltanto: ‘La virtù è premio a se stessa.’ ”
Di nuovo ci fu un silenzio, e poi Lambert disse:
“Pare un po’ misteriosa.”
“Misteriosa!” gridò l’altro. “Il vero umorismo è misterioso. Non vi rendete conto dell’evento capitale del diciannovesimo e ventesimo secolo?”
“E quale sarebbe?” chiese Lambert, secco.
“È semplicissimo,” rispose l’altro. “Finora era la rovina di uno scherzo che la gente non lo cogliesse. Ora è la sublime vittoria di uno scherzo che la gente non lo colga. L’umorismo, amici miei, è l’unica sacralità rimasta all’umanità. È l’unica cosa di cui abbiate una vera paura. Guardate quell’albero.”
I suoi interlocutori guardarono vagamente verso un faggio che si protendeva verso di loro dal crinale della collina.
“Se,” disse il signor Quin, “vi dicessi che non vedete le grandi verità della scienza esibite da quell’albero, benché fissino in faccia ogni uomo d’ingegno, cosa pensereste o direste? Mi considerereste semplicemente un pedante con qualche teoria di poco conto sulle cellule vegetali. Se vi dicessi che non vedete in quell’albero la vile malagestione della politica locale, mi liquidereste come un maniaco socialista con una particolare fissazione sui parchi pubblici. Se vi dicessi che siete colpevoli della suprema bestemmia di guardare quell’albero e di non vedervi una nuova religione, una speciale rivelazione di Dio, direste semplicemente che ero un mistico, e non pensereste più a me. Ma se… e alzò una mano pontificale… se dico che non riuscite a vedere l’umorismo di quell’albero, e che io ne vedo l’umorismo… mio Dio! vi rotolerete ai miei piedi.”
Fece una pausa un istante, e poi riprese.
“Sì; un senso dell’umorismo, uno strano e delicato senso dell’umorismo, è la nuova religione dell’umanità! È verso quella che gli uomini si sforzeranno con l’ascesi dei santi. Vi si stabiliranno esercizi, esercizi spirituali. Si chiederà: ‘Riuscite a vedere l’umorismo di questa ringhiera di ferro?’ oppure ‘Riuscite a vedere l’umorismo di questo campo di grano? Riuscite a vedere l’umorismo delle stelle? Riuscite a vedere l’umorismo dei tramonti?’ Quante volte mi sono addormentato dal ridere, sprofondando nel sonno sopra un tramonto violetto.”
“Proprio così,” disse il signor Barker, con un intelligente imbarazzo.
“Lasciate che vi racconti un’altra storia. Quanto spesso accade che i deputati dell’Essex siano meno puntuali di quanto si supporrebbe. Il deputato meno puntuale dell’Essex, forse, era James Wilson, il quale disse, nell’atto stesso di cogliere un papavero…”
Lambert di scatto si voltò e piantò il bastone nel terreno in un atteggiamento di sfida.
“Auberon,” disse, “piantala. Non lo sopporto. È tutta una sciocchezza.”
Entrambi gli uomini lo fissarono, perché c’era qualcosa di assai esplosivo in quelle parole, come se fossero state penosamente tappate dentro per un lungo tempo.
“Tu non hai,” cominciò Quin, “nessun…”
“Non me ne importa un accidente,” disse Lambert, con violenza, “se ho ‘un delicato senso dell’umorismo’ oppure no. Non lo sopporto. È tutta una maledetta frode. In quei racconti infernali non c’è proprio nessuno scherzo. Lo sai tanto bene quanto me che non c’è.”
“Beh,” rispose Quin, lentamente, “è vero che io, coi miei processi mentali piuttosto graduali, non ci ho visto nessuno scherzo. Ma il senso più fine di Barker lo ha percepito.”
Barker si fece di un rosso acceso, ma continuò a fissare l’orizzonte.
“You ass,” said Lambert; “why can’t you be like other people? Why can’t you say something really funny, or hold your tongue? The man who sits on his hat in a pantomime is a long sight funnier than you are.”
Quin regarded him steadily. They had reached the top of the ridge and the wind struck their faces.
“Lambert,” said Auberon, “you are a great and good man, though I’m hanged if you look it. You are more. You are a great revolutionist or deliverer of the world, and I look forward to seeing you carved in marble between Luther and Danton, if possible in your present attitude, the hat slightly on one side. I said as I came up the hill that the new humour was the last of the religions. You have made it the last of the superstitions. But let me give you a very serious warning. Be careful how you ask me to do anything outre, to imitate the man in the pantomime, and to sit on my hat. Because I am a man whose soul has been emptied of all pleasures but folly. And for twopence I’d do it.”
“Do it then,” said Lambert, swinging his stick impatiently. “It would be funnier than the bosh you and Barker talk.”
Quin, standing on the top of the hill, stretched his hand out towards the main avenue of Kensington Gardens.
“Two hundred yards away,” he said, “are all your fashionable acquaintances with nothing on earth to do but to stare at each other and at us. We are standing upon an elevation under the open sky, a peak as it were of fantasy, a Sinai of humour. We are in a great pulpit or platform, lit up with sunlight, and half London can see us. Be careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness which goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Lambert, contemptuously. “I only know I’d rather you stood on your silly head, than talked so much.”
“Auberon! for goodness’ sake…” cried Barker, springing forward; but he was too late. Faces from, all the benches and avenues were turned in their direction. Groups stopped and small crowds collected; and the sharp sunlight picked out the whole scene in blue, green and black, like a picture in a child’s toy-book. And on the top of the small hill Mr. Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness upon his head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air.
“For God’s sake, Quin, get up, and don’t be an idiot,” cried Barker, wringing his hands; “we shall have the whole town here.”
“Yes, get up, get up, man,” said Lambert, amused and annoyed. “I was only fooling; get up.”
Auberon did so with a bound, and flinging his hat higher than the trees, proceeded to hop about on one leg with a serious expression. Barker stamped wildly.
“Oh, let’s get home, Barker, and leave him,” said Lambert; “some of your proper and correct police will look after him. Here they come!”
Two grave-looking men in quiet uniforms came up the hill towards them. One held a paper in his hand.
“There he is, officer,” said Lambert, cheerfully; “we ain’t responsible for him.”
The officer looked at the capering Mr. Quin with a quiet eye.
“We have not come, gentlemen,” he said, “about what I think you are alluding to. We have come from head-quarters to announce the selection of His Majesty the King. It is the rule, inherited from the old regime, that the news should be brought to the new Sovereign immediately, wherever he is; so we have followed you across Kensington Gardens.”
Barker’s eyes were blazing in his pale face. He was consumed with ambition throughout his life. With a certain dull magnanimity of the intellect he had really believed in the chance method of selecting despots. But this sudden suggestion, that the selection might have fallen upon him, unnerved him with pleasure.
“Which of us,” he began, and the respectful official interrupted him.
“Not you, sir, I am sorry to say. If I may be permitted to say so, we know your services to the Government, and should be very thankful if it were. The choice has fallen…”
“God bless my soul!” said Lambert, jumping back two paces. “Not me. Don’t say I’m autocrat of all the Russias.”
“No, sir,” said the officer, with a slight cough and a glance towards Auberon, who was at that moment putting his head between his legs and making a noise like a cow; “the gentleman whom we have to congratulate seems at the moment…er…er…occupied.”
“Not Quin!” shrieked Barker, rushing up to him; “it can’t be. Auberon, for God’s sake pull yourself together. You’ve been made King!”
With his head still upside down between his legs, Mr. Quin answered modestly:
“I am not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the great men who have previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. Perhaps the only peculiarity that I can claim is that I am probably the first monarch that ever spoke out his soul to the people of England with his head and body in this position. This may in some sense give me, to quote a poem that I wrote in my youth:
“A nobler office on the earth Than valour, power of brain, or birth Could give the warrior kings of old. The intellect clarified by this posture…”
Lambert and Barker made a kind of rush at him.
“Don’t you understand?” cried Lambert. “It’s not a joke. They’ve really made you King. By gosh! they must have rum taste.”
“The great Bishops of the Middle Ages,” said Quin, kicking his legs in the air, as he was dragged, up more or less upside down, “were in the habit of refusing the honour of election three times and then accepting it. A mere matter of detail separates me from those great men. I will accept the post three times and refuse it afterwards. Oh! I will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet of humour.”
By this time he had been landed the right way up, and the two men were still trying in vain to impress him with the gravity of the situation.
“Did you not tell me, Wilfrid Lambert,” he said, “that I should be of more public value if I adopted a more popular form of humour? And when should a popular form of humour be more firmly riveted upon me than now, when I have become the darling of a whole people? Officer,” he continued, addressing the startled messenger, “are there no ceremonies to celebrate my entry into the city?”
“Ceremonies,” began the official, with embarrassment, “have been more or less neglected for some little time, and…”
Auberon Quin began gradually to take off his coat.
“All ceremony,” he said, “consists in the reversal of the obvious. Thus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women. Kindly help me on with this coat.” And he held it out.
“But, your Majesty,” said the officer, after a moment’s bewilderment and manipulation, “you’re putting it on with the tails in front.”
“The reversal of the obvious,” said the King, calmly, “is as near as we can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. Lead on.”
The rest of that afternoon and evening was to Barker and Lambert a nightmare, which they could not properly realize or recall. The King, with his coat on the wrong way, went towards the streets that were awaiting him, and the old Kensington Palace which was the Royal residence. As he passed small groups of men, the groups turned into crowds, and gave forth sounds which seemed strange in welcoming an autocrat. Barker walked behind, his brain reeling, and, as the crowds grew thicker and thicker, the sounds became more and more unusual. And when he had reached the great market-place opposite the church, Barker knew that he had reached it, though he was roods behind, because a cry went up such as had never before greeted any of the kings of the earth.
“Somaro,” disse Lambert; “perché non puoi essere come gli altri? Perché non puoi dire qualcosa di davvero divertente, o tenere a freno la lingua? L’uomo che si siede sul proprio cappello in una pantomima è di gran lunga più divertente di te.”
Quin lo guardò fisso. Avevano raggiunto la cima del crinale e il vento colpì loro il volto.
“Lambert,” disse Auberon, “tu sei un uomo grande e buono, anche se mi venga un accidente se lo dai a vedere. Sei di più. Sei un grande rivoluzionario o liberatore del mondo, e non vedo l’ora di vederti scolpito nel marmo tra Lutero e Danton, possibilmente nel tuo attuale atteggiamento, il cappello un po’ su un lato. Ho detto, mentre salivo la collina, che il nuovo umorismo era l’ultima delle religioni. Tu ne hai fatto l’ultima delle superstizioni. Ma lascia che ti dia un ammonimento assai serio. Bada bene a come mi chiedi di fare qualcosa di outré, di imitare l’uomo nella pantomima, e di sedermi sul mio cappello. Perché io sono un uomo la cui anima è stata svuotata di ogni piacere tranne la follia. E per due soldi lo farei.”
“Fallo allora,” disse Lambert, agitando il bastone con impazienza. “Sarebbe più divertente delle sciocchezze che tu e Barker raccontate.”
Quin, ritto sulla cima della collina, protese la mano verso il viale principale dei Kensington Gardens.
“A duecento metri da qui,” disse, “ci sono tutte le vostre conoscenze alla moda che non hanno nulla al mondo da fare se non fissarsi a vicenda e fissare noi. Siamo ritti su un’altura sotto il cielo aperto, una vetta per così dire di fantasia, un Sinai dell’umorismo. Siamo su un grande pulpito o palco, illuminato dal sole, e mezza Londra può vederci. Bada bene a come mi suggerisci le cose. Perché c’è in me una follia che va oltre il martirio, la follia di un uomo del tutto ozioso.”
“Non so di cosa tu stia parlando,” disse Lambert, con disprezzo. “So solo che preferirei ti reggessi sulla tua sciocca testa piuttosto che parlassi tanto.”
“Auberon! per amor del cielo…” gridò Barker, balzando avanti; ma era troppo tardi. I volti da tutte le panchine e i viali erano rivolti nella loro direzione. I gruppi si fermavano e piccole folle si radunavano; e la luce acuta del sole ritagliava l’intera scena in azzurro, verde e nero, come un’illustrazione nel libro di giocattoli di un bambino. E sulla cima della piccola collina il signor Auberon Quin stava con notevole precisione atletica sulla testa, e agitava in aria i suoi stivali di vernice.
“Per amor di Dio, Quin, tirati su, e non fare l’idiota,” gridò Barker, torcendosi le mani; “ci ritroveremo qui tutta la città.”
“Sì, tirati su, tirati su, amico,” disse Lambert, divertito e infastidito. “Stavo solo scherzando; tirati su.”
Auberon lo fece con un balzo, e scagliando il cappello più in alto degli alberi, si mise a saltellare su una gamba sola con espressione grave. Barker pestò i piedi come un forsennato.
“Oh, andiamocene a casa, Barker, e lasciamolo qui,” disse Lambert; “un po’ della vostra corretta e regolamentare polizia si occuperà di lui. Eccoli che arrivano!”
Due uomini dall’aria grave in sobrie uniformi salirono la collina verso di loro. Uno teneva in mano un foglio.
“Eccolo là, agente,” disse Lambert, allegramente; “noi non siamo responsabili di lui.”
L’agente guardò con occhio tranquillo il signor Quin che faceva capriole.
“Non siamo venuti, signori,” disse, “per ciò a cui credo alludiate. Siamo venuti dal quartier generale per annunciare la scelta di Sua Maestà il Re. È regola, ereditata dal vecchio regime, che la notizia sia recata al nuovo Sovrano immediatamente, ovunque egli sia; così vi abbiamo seguito attraverso i Kensington Gardens.”
Gli occhi di Barker fiammeggiavano nel suo volto pallido. Fu consumato dall’ambizione per tutta la vita. Con una certa ottusa magnanimità dell’intelletto aveva davvero creduto nel metodo casuale di scegliere i despoti. Ma questo improvviso suggerimento, che la scelta potesse essere caduta su di lui, lo scombussolò di piacere.
“Chi di noi,” cominciò, e il rispettoso funzionario lo interruppe.
“Non voi, signore, mi spiace dirlo. Se mi è concesso dirlo, conosciamo i vostri servigi al Governo, e ne saremmo grati se lo fosse. La scelta è caduta…”
“Che Dio benedica l’anima mia!” disse Lambert, saltando indietro di due passi. “Non io. Non ditemi che sono autocrate di tutte le Russie.”
“No, signore,” disse l’agente, con un lieve colpo di tosse e uno sguardo verso Auberon, che in quel momento si stava ficcando la testa tra le gambe e faceva un verso simile a quello di una mucca; “il gentiluomo che dobbiamo felicitare sembra al momento… ehm… ehm… occupato.”
“Non Quin!” strillò Barker, precipitandosi verso di lui; “non può essere. Auberon, per amor di Dio riprenditi. Ti hanno fatto Re!”
Con la testa ancora capovolta tra le gambe, il signor Quin rispose modestamente:
“Non ne sono degno. Non posso ragionevolmente pretendere di eguagliare i grandi uomini che prima di me hanno impugnato lo scettro di Britannia. Forse l’unica particolarità che posso vantare è che sono probabilmente il primo monarca che abbia mai riversato la propria anima al popolo d’Inghilterra con la testa e il corpo in questa posizione. Ciò può in un certo senso darmi, per citare una poesia che scrissi in gioventù:
“Un ufficio più nobile sulla terra
Di quanto valore, potere d’ingegno o nascita
Potessero dare agli antichi re guerrieri.
L’intelletto chiarificato da questa postura…”
Lambert e Barker si lanciarono una specie di assalto verso di lui.
“Non capisci?” gridò Lambert. “Non è uno scherzo. Ti hanno fatto davvero Re. Perbacco! devono avere dei gusti ben strani.”
“I grandi Vescovi del Medioevo,” disse Quin, sferrando calci in aria, mentre veniva trascinato su più o meno a testa in giù, “avevano l’abitudine di rifiutare l’onore dell’elezione tre volte e poi di accettarlo. Una mera questione di dettaglio mi separa da quei grandi uomini. Accetterò la carica tre volte e la rifiuterò dopo. Oh! io mi affannerò per voi, mio fedele popolo! Avrete un banchetto di umorismo.”
A questo punto era stato deposto per il verso giusto, e i due uomini stavano ancora cercando invano di impressionarlo con la gravità della situazione.
“Non mi hai forse detto, Wilfrid Lambert,” disse, “che sarei stato di maggior valore pubblico se avessi adottato una forma più popolare di umorismo? E quando dovrebbe una forma popolare di umorismo essermi più saldamente inchiodata addosso di adesso, che sono diventato il beniamino di un intero popolo? Agente,” proseguì, rivolgendosi al messaggero sbigottito, “non ci sono cerimonie per celebrare il mio ingresso nella città?”
“Cerimonie,” cominciò il funzionario, con imbarazzo, “sono state più o meno trascurate da un po’ di tempo, e…”
Auberon Quin cominciò gradualmente a togliersi la giacca.
“Ogni cerimonia,” disse, “consiste nel rovesciamento dell’ovvio. Così gli uomini, quando vogliono essere preti o giudici, si vestono da donne. Abbiate la cortesia di aiutarmi a infilare questa giacca.” E la porse.
“Ma, Maestà,” disse l’agente, dopo un attimo di sconcerto e di armeggìo, “la state indossando con le falde davanti.”
“Il rovesciamento dell’ovvio,” disse il Re, con calma, “è quanto di più vicino al rituale possiamo giungere col nostro imperfetto apparato. Fate strada.”
Il resto di quel pomeriggio e di quella sera fu per Barker e Lambert un incubo, che non riuscirono a realizzare o a rammentare bene. Il Re, con la giacca al contrario, si avviò verso le strade che lo attendevano, e il vecchio Palazzo di Kensington che era la residenza reale. Man mano che passava accanto a piccoli gruppi di uomini, i gruppi si mutavano in folle, ed emettevano suoni che parevano strani nell’accogliere un autocrate. Barker camminava dietro, la mente in tumulto, e, man mano che le folle si facevano sempre più fitte, i suoni diventavano sempre più insoliti. E quando ebbe raggiunto la grande piazza del mercato di fronte alla chiesa, Barker seppe di averla raggiunta, benché fosse rimasto molto indietro, perché si levò un grido quale non aveva mai prima salutato alcuno dei re della terra.
BOOK II CHAPTER I
THE CHARTER OF THE CITIES
LAMBERT was standing bewildered outside the door of the King’s apartments amid the scurry of astonishment and ridicule. He was just passing out into the street, in a dazed manner, when James Barker dashed by him.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To stop all this foolery, of course,” replied Barker; and he disappeared into the room.
He entered it headlong, slamming the door, and slapping his incomparable silk hat on the table. His mouth opened, but before he could speak, the King said:
“Your hat, if you please.”
Fidgeting with his fingers, and scarcely knowing what he was doing, the young politician held it out.
The King placed it on his own chair, and sat on it.
“A quaint old custom,” he explained, smiling above the ruins. “When the King receives the representatives of the House of Barker, the hat of the latter is immediately destroyed in this manner. It represents the absolute finality of the act of homage expressed in the removal of it. It declares that never until that hat shall once more appear upon your head (a contingency which I firmly believe to be remote) shall the House of Barker rebel against the Crown of England.”
Barker stood with clenched fist, and shaking lip.
“Your jokes,” he began, “and my property…” and then exploded with an oath, and stopped again.
“Continue, continue,” said the King, waving his hands.
“What does it all mean?” cried the other with a gesture of passionate rationality. “Are you mad?”
“Not in the least,” replied the King, pleasantly. “Madmen are always serious; they go mad from lack of humour. You are looking serious yourself, James.”
“Why can’t you keep it to your own private life?” expostulated the other. “You’ve got plenty of money, and plenty of houses now to play the fool in, but in the interests of the public…”
“Epigrammatic,” said the King, shaking his finger sadly at him. “None of your daring scintillations here. As to why I don’t do it in private, I rather fail to understand your question. The answer is of comparative limpidity. I don’t do it in private, because it is funnier to do it in public. You appear to think that it would be amusing to be dignified in the banquet hall and in the street, and at my own fireside (I could procure a fireside) to keep the company in a roar. But that is what every one does. Every one is grave in public, and funny in private. My sense of humour suggests the reversal of this; it suggests that one should be funny in public, and solemn in private. I desire to make the State functions, parliaments, coronations, and so on, one roaring old-fashioned pantomime. But, on the other hand, I shut myself up alone in a small store-room for two hours a day, where I am so dignified that I come out quite ill.”
By this time Barker was walking up and down the room, his frock-coat flapping like the black wings of a bird.
“Well, you will ruin the country, that’s all,” he said shortly.
“It seems to me,” said Auberon, “that the tradition of ten centuries is being broken, and the House of Barker is rebelling against the Crown of England. It would be with regret (for I admire your appearance) that I should be obliged forcibly to decorate your head with the remains of this hat, but…”
“What I can’t understand,” said Barker, flinging up his fingers with a feverish American movement, “is why you don’t care about anything else but your games.”
The King stopped sharply in the act of lifting the silken remnants, dropped them, and walked up to Barker, looking at him steadily.
“I made a kind of vow,” he said, “that I would not talk seriously, which always means answering silly questions. But the strong man will always be gentle with politicians.
“‘The shape my scornful looks deride Required a God to form;’
“if I may so theologically express myself. And for some reason I cannot in the least understand, I feel impelled to answer that question of yours, and to answer it as if there were really such a thing in the world as a serious subject. You ask me why I don’t care for anything else. Can you tell me, in the name of all the gods you don’t believe in, why I should care for anything else?”
“Don’t you realize common public necessities?” cried Barker. “Is it possible that a man of your intelligence does not know that it is every one’s interest…”
“Don’t you believe in Zoroaster? Is it possible that you neglect Mumbo-Jumbo?” returned the King, with startling animation. “Does a man of your intelligence come to me with these damned early Victorian ethics? If, on studying my features and manner, you detect any particular resemblance to the Prince Consort, I assure you you are mistaken. Did Herbert Spencer ever convince you…did he ever convince anybody…did he ever for one mad moment convince himself…that it must be to the interest of the individual to feel a public spirit? Do you believe that, if you rule your department badly, you stand any more chance, or one half of the chance, of being guillotined, than an angler stands, of being pulled into the river by a strong pike? Herbert Spencer refrained from theft for the same reason that he refrained from wearing feathers in his hair, because he was an English gentleman with different tastes. I am an English gentleman with different tastes. He liked philosophy. I like art. He liked writing ten books on the nature of human society. I like to see the Lord Chamberlain walking in front of me with a piece of paper pinned to his coat-tails. It is my humour. Are you answered? At any rate, I have said my last serious word today, and my last serious word I trust for the remainder of my life in this Paradise of Fools. The remainder of my conversation with you today, which I trust will be long and stimulating, I propose to conduct in a new language of my own by means of rapid and symbolic movements of the left leg.” And he began to pirouette slowly round the room with a preoccupied expression.
LIBRO II CAPITOLO I
LA CARTA DELLE CITTÀ
LAMBERT stava sbigottito fuori dalla porta degli appartamenti del Re, in mezzo al trambusto di stupore e di scherno. Stava proprio uscendo in strada, con aria stralunata, quando James Barker gli passò accanto di corsa.
«Dove vai?» chiese.
«A por fine a tutta questa buffoneria, ovviamente,» rispose Barker; e scomparve nella stanza.
Vi entrò a capofitto, sbattendo la porta e schiaffando il suo incomparabile cilindro di seta sul tavolo. Aprì la bocca, ma prima che potesse parlare, il Re disse:
«Il tuo cappello, per favore.»
Trafficando con le dita, e a malapena consapevole di ciò che faceva, il giovane politico glielo porse.
Il Re lo posò sulla propria sedia e vi si sedette sopra.
«Una bizzarra vecchia usanza,» spiegò, sorridendo al di sopra delle rovine. «Quando il Re riceve i rappresentanti della Casa di Barker, il cappello di costoro viene immediatamente distrutto in questo modo. Rappresenta l’assoluta definitività dell’atto di omaggio espresso nel toglierlo. Dichiara che mai, finché quel cappello non comparirà di nuovo sul tuo capo (evenienza che credo fermamente essere remota), la Casa di Barker si ribellerà contro la Corona d’Inghilterra.»
Barker stava col pugno serrato e il labbro tremante.
«Le tue battute,» cominciò, «e la mia proprietà…» e poi esplose con un’imprecazione, e si fermò di nuovo.
«Continua, continua,» disse il Re, agitando le mani.
«Che cosa significa tutto questo?» gridò l’altro con un gesto di appassionata razionalità. «Sei matto?»
«Nient’affatto,» rispose il Re, amabilmente. «I matti sono sempre seri; impazziscono per mancanza di umorismo. Anche tu hai un’aria seria, James.»
«Perché non puoi limitarlo alla tua vita privata?» protestò l’altro. «Hai denaro in abbondanza, e ora case in abbondanza in cui fare lo sciocco, ma nell’interesse del pubblico…»
«Epigrammatico,» disse il Re, puntandogli il dito con tristezza. «Niente ardite scintille qui. Quanto al perché non lo faccia in privato, faccio piuttosto fatica a capire la tua domanda. La risposta è di comparativa limpidezza. Non lo faccio in privato, perché è più buffo farlo in pubblico. Tu pare che pensi che sarebbe divertente essere dignitoso nella sala del banchetto e per strada, e al proprio focolare (potrei procurarmi un focolare) tenere la compagnia in un fragore di risate. Ma è ciò che fanno tutti. Tutti sono gravi in pubblico, e buffi in privato. Il mio senso dell’umorismo suggerisce il rovesciamento di ciò; suggerisce che si debba essere buffi in pubblico, e solenni in privato. Desidero fare delle funzioni di Stato, dei parlamenti, delle incoronazioni e via dicendo, un’unica fragorosa pantomima all’antica. Ma, d’altra parte, mi rinchiudo da solo in un piccolo sgabuzzino per due ore al giorno, dove sono così dignitoso che ne esco addirittura malato.»
A questo punto Barker camminava su e giù per la stanza, la sua finanziera sbatteva come le ali nere di un uccello.
«Ebbene, manderai il paese in rovina, ecco tutto,» disse in tono secco.
«Mi pare,» disse Auberon, «che la tradizione di dieci secoli venga infranta, e che la Casa di Barker si stia ribellando contro la Corona d’Inghilterra. Sarebbe con rammarico (giacché ammiro il tuo aspetto) che mi vedrei costretto a decorarti con la forza il capo con i resti di questo cappello, ma…»
«Ciò che non riesco a capire,» disse Barker, gettando in su le dita con un febbrile gesto americano, «è perché non t’importi di nient’altro che dei tuoi giochi.»
Il Re si fermò di colpo nell’atto di sollevare i brandelli di seta, li lasciò cadere, e si avvicinò a Barker, guardandolo con fermezza.
«Feci una specie di voto,» disse, «che non avrei parlato sul serio, il che significa sempre rispondere a domande sciocche. Ma l’uomo forte sarà sempre gentile con i politici.
«“La forma che i miei sguardi sprezzanti deridono / Richiese un Dio per essere formata;”
«se posso esprimermi così teologicamente. E per qualche ragione che non riesco minimamente a comprendere, mi sento spinto a rispondere a quella tua domanda, e a risponderle come se esistesse davvero al mondo una cosa quale un argomento serio. Mi chiedi perché non m’importi di nient’altro. Puoi dirmi tu, nel nome di tutti gli dèi in cui non credi, perché dovrebbe importarmi di qualcos’altro?»
«Non ti rendi conto delle comuni necessità pubbliche?» gridò Barker. «È possibile che un uomo della tua intelligenza non sappia che è nell’interesse di tutti…»
«Non credi in Zoroastro? È possibile che tu trascuri Mumbo-Jumbo?» ribatté il Re, con sorprendente animazione. «Un uomo della tua intelligenza viene da me con questa maledetta etica del primo periodo vittoriano? Se, studiando i miei lineamenti e i miei modi, tu scorgi una qualche particolare somiglianza col Principe Consorte, ti assicuro che ti sbagli. Herbert Spencer ti ha mai convinto…ha mai convinto qualcuno…ha mai per un solo folle istante convinto sé stesso…che debba essere nell’interesse dell’individuo provare uno spirito pubblico? Credi tu che, se governi male il tuo dipartimento, tu corra un po’ più di rischio, o la metà del rischio, di essere ghigliottinato, di quanto ne corra un pescatore di essere trascinato nel fiume da un grosso luccio? Herbert Spencer si asteneva dal furto per la stessa ragione per cui si asteneva dal portare piume tra i capelli, perché era un gentiluomo inglese con gusti diversi. Io sono un gentiluomo inglese con gusti diversi. A lui piaceva la filosofia. A me piace l’arte. A lui piaceva scrivere dieci libri sulla natura della società umana. A me piace vedere il Lord Ciambellano camminare davanti a me con un pezzo di carta appuntato alle falde della giacca. È il mio umorismo. Ti ho risposto? A ogni modo, ho detto la mia ultima parola seria per oggi, e la mia ultima parola seria, confido, per il resto della mia vita in questo Paradiso dei Folli. Il resto della mia conversazione con te oggi, che confido sarà lungo e stimolante, mi propongo di condurlo in una nuova lingua tutta mia, mediante rapidi e simbolici movimenti della gamba sinistra.» E cominciò a piroettare lentamente per la stanza con espressione assorta.
Barker ran round the room after him, bombarding him with demands and entreaties. But he received no response except in the new language. He came out banging the door again, and sick like a man coming on shore. As he strode along the streets he found himself suddenly opposite Cicconani’s restaurant, and for some reason there rose up before him the green fantastic figure of the Spanish General, standing, as he had seen him last, at the door with the words on his lips, “You cannot argue with the choice of the soul.”
The King came out from his dancing with the air of a man of business legitimately tired. He put on an overcoat, lit a cigar, and went out into the purple night.
“I will go,” he said, “and mingle with the people.”
He passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of Notting Hill, when suddenly he felt a hard object driven into his waistcoat. He paused, put up a single eye-glass, and beheld a boy with a wooden sword and a paper cocked hat, wearing that expression of awed satisfaction with which a child contemplates his work when he has hit some one very hard. The King gazed thoughtfully for some time at his assailant, and slowly took a note-book from his breast-pocket.
“I have a few notes,” he said, “for my dying speech;” and he turned over the leaves. “Dying speech for political assassination; ditto, if by former friend…h’m, h’m. Dying speech for death at hands of injured husband (repentant). Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quite sure which meets the present…”
“I’m the King of the Castle,” said the boy, truculently, and very pleased with nothing in particular.
The King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, like all people who are fond of the ridiculous.
“Infant,” he said. “I’m glad you are so stalwart a defender of your old inviolate Notting Hill. Look up nightly to that peak, my child, where it lifts itself among the stars so ancient, so lonely, so unutterably Notting. So long as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of Bayswater…”
The King stopped suddenly, and his eyes shone.
“Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps the noblest of all my conceptions. A revival of the arrogance of the old mediaeval cities applied to our glorious suburbs. Clapham with a city guard. Wimbledon with a city wall. Surbiton tolling a bell to raise its citizens. West Hampstead going into battle with its own banner. It shall be done. I, the King, have said it.” And, hastily presenting the boy with half-a-crown, remarking, “For the war-chest of Notting Hill,” he ran violently home at such a rate of speed that crowds followed him for miles. On reaching his study, he ordered a cup of coffee, and plunged into profound meditation upon the project. At length he called his favourite Equerry, Captain Bowler, for whom he had a deep affection, founded principally upon the shape of his whiskers.
“Bowler,” he said, “isn’t there some society of historical research, or something of which I am an honorary member?”
“Yes, sir,” said Captain Bowler, rubbing his nose, “you are a member of ’ The Encouragers of Egyptian Renaissance,’ and ’ The Teutonic Tombs Club,’ and ’ The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities,’ and…”
“That is admirable,” said the King. “The London Antiquities does my trick. Go to the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities and speak to their secretary, and their sub-secretary, and their president, and their vice-president, saying, ’ The King of England is proud, but the honorary member of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities is prouder than kings. I should like to tell you of certain discoveries I have made touching the neglected traditions of the London boroughs. The revelations may cause some excitement, stirring burning memories and touching old wounds in Shepherd’s Bush and Bayswater, in Pimlico and South Kensington. The King hesitates, but the honorary member is firm. I approach you invoking the vows of my initiation, the Sacred Seven Cats, the Poker of Perfection, and the Ordeal of the Indescribable Instant (forgive me if I mix you up with the Clan-na-Gael or some other club I belong to), and ask you to permit me to read a paper at your next meeting on the ’ Wars of the London Boroughs.’ Say all this to the Society, Bowler. Remember it very carefully, for it is most important, and I have forgotten it altogether, and send me another cup of coffee and some of the cigars that we keep for vulgar and successful people. I am going to write my paper.”
The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities met a month after in a corrugated iron hall on the outskirts of one of the southern suburbs of London. A large number of people had collected there under the coarse and flaring gas-jets when the King arrived, perspiring and genial. On taking off his great-coat, he was perceived to be in evening dress, wearing the Garter. His appearance at the small table, adorned only with a glass of water, was received with respectful cheering.
The chairman (Mr. Huggins) said that he was sure that they had all been pleased to listen to such distinguished lecturers as they had heard for some time past (hear, hear). Mr. Burton (hear, hear), Mr. Cambridge, Professor King (loud and continued cheers), our old friend Peter Jessop, Sir William White (loud laughter), and other eminent men, had done honour to their little venture (cheers). But there were other circumstances which lent a certain unique quality to the present occasion (hear, hear). So far as his recollection went, and in connection with the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities it went very far (loud cheers), he did not remember that any of their lecturers had borne the title of King. He would therefore call upon King Auberon briefly to address the meeting.
Barker gli corse dietro per la stanza, bombardandolo di richieste e suppliche. Ma non ricevette risposta se non nella nuova lingua. Uscì sbattendo di nuovo la porta, e in preda alla nausea come chi mette piede a riva. Mentre camminava a grandi passi per le strade si ritrovò all’improvviso di fronte al ristorante di Cicconani, e per qualche ragione gli si levò dinanzi la verde fantastica figura del Generale spagnolo, ritto, come l’aveva visto l’ultima volta, sulla porta con le parole sulle labbra: «Non si può discutere con la scelta dell’anima.»
Il Re uscì dalla sua danza con l’aria di un uomo d’affari legittimamente stanco. Indossò un soprabito, accese un sigaro, e uscì nella purpurea notte.
«Andrò,» disse, «a mescolarmi con il popolo.»
Percorse rapidamente una strada nei dintorni di Notting Hill, quando all’improvviso sentì un oggetto duro conficcarglisi nel panciotto. Si fermò, inforcò un monocolo, e scorse un ragazzo con una spada di legno e un cappello di carta a tricorno, che aveva quell’espressione di reverente soddisfazione con cui un bambino contempla la propria opera quando ha colpito qualcuno molto forte. Il Re fissò pensoso per un po’ di tempo il suo assalitore, e lentamente estrasse un taccuino dal taschino.
«Ho qualche appunto,» disse, «per il mio discorso di morte;» e voltò le pagine. «Discorso di morte per assassinio politico; idem, se per mano di un vecchio amico…ehm, ehm. Discorso di morte per morte per mano del marito oltraggiato (pentito). Discorso di morte per lo stesso caso (cinico). Non sono del tutto sicuro di quale si adatti al presente…»
«Sono io il Re del Castello,» disse il ragazzo, truculento, e assai compiaciuto di niente in particolare.
Il Re era un uomo di buon cuore, e assai affezionato ai bambini, come tutti coloro che sono affezionati al ridicolo.
«Fanciullo,» disse. «Sono lieto che tu sia un così valoroso difensore della tua vecchia inviolata Notting Hill. Guarda ogni notte a quella vetta, bimbo mio, dove essa s’innalza tra le stelle così antica, così solitaria, così indicibilmente Notting. Finché sarai pronto a morire per la sacra montagna, anche se fosse cinta da tutte le armate di Bayswater…»
Il Re si fermò all’improvviso, e i suoi occhi brillarono.
«Forse,» disse, «forse la più nobile di tutte le mie concezioni. Un ravvivamento dell’arroganza delle antiche città medievali applicato ai nostri gloriosi sobborghi. Clapham con una guardia cittadina. Wimbledon con una cinta muraria cittadina. Surbiton che suona una campana per adunare i suoi cittadini. West Hampstead che va in battaglia col proprio stendardo. Sarà fatto. Io, il Re, l’ho detto.» E, presentando in fretta al ragazzo mezza corona, osservando: «Per il tesoro di guerra di Notting Hill,» corse a casa con tale violenza e a tale velocità che le folle lo seguirono per miglia. Giunto al suo studio, ordinò una tazza di caffè, e si tuffò in profonda meditazione sul progetto. Alla fine chiamò il suo Scudiero prediletto, il capitano Bowler, per il quale nutriva un profondo affetto, fondato principalmente sulla forma dei suoi favoriti.
«Bowler,» disse, «non c’è qualche società di ricerca storica, o qualcosa del genere, di cui io sia membro onorario?»
«Sì, signore,» disse il capitano Bowler, sfregandosi il naso, «lei è membro degli “Incoraggiatori del Rinascimento Egizio”, e del “Club delle Tombe Teutoniche”, e della “Società per il Recupero delle Antichità di Londra”, e…»
«Perfetto,» disse il Re. «Le Antichità di Londra fanno al caso mio. Va’ alla Società per il Recupero delle Antichità di Londra e parla al loro segretario, e al loro vicesegretario, e al loro presidente, e al loro vicepresidente, dicendo: “Il Re d’Inghilterra è orgoglioso, ma il membro onorario della Società per il Recupero delle Antichità di Londra è più orgoglioso dei re. Vorrei parlarvi di certe scoperte che ho fatto riguardo alle trascurate tradizioni dei borghi di Londra. Le rivelazioni potrebbero suscitare una certa agitazione, ridestando memorie brucianti e toccando vecchie ferite a Shepherd’s Bush e a Bayswater, a Pimlico e a South Kensington. Il Re esita, ma il membro onorario è fermo. Mi accosto a voi invocando i voti della mia iniziazione, i Sacri Sette Gatti, l’Attizzatoio della Perfezione e l’Ordalia dell’Indescrivibile Istante (perdonatemi se vi confondo con il Clan-na-Gael o qualche altro club a cui appartengo), e vi chiedo di permettermi di leggere una relazione alla vostra prossima riunione sulle ‘Guerre dei Borghi di Londra.’” Di’ tutto questo alla Società, Bowler. Ricordalo con gran cura, perché è della massima importanza, e io l’ho dimenticato del tutto, e mandami un’altra tazza di caffè e qualcuno dei sigari che teniamo per la gente volgare e di successo. Vado a scrivere la mia relazione.»
La Società per il Recupero delle Antichità di Londra si riunì un mese dopo in una sala di lamiera ondulata alla periferia di uno dei sobborghi meridionali di Londra. Un gran numero di persone vi si era raccolto sotto i rozzi e sfavillanti becchi a gas quando il Re arrivò, sudato e gioviale. Nel togliersi il pastrano, si vide che era in abito da sera, e portava l’Ordine della Giarrettiera. La sua comparsa al tavolino, adorno soltanto di un bicchiere d’acqua, fu accolta da rispettosi applausi.
Il presidente (il signor Huggins) disse che era certo che tutti erano stati lieti di ascoltare tanti illustri conferenzieri quanti ne avevano uditi negli ultimi tempi (bene, bene). Il signor Burton (bene, bene), il signor Cambridge, il professor King (applausi fragorosi e prolungati), il nostro vecchio amico Peter Jessop, sir William White (grandi risate), e altri uomini eminenti, avevano reso onore alla loro piccola impresa (applausi). Ma vi erano altre circostanze che conferivano una certa qualità unica alla presente occasione (bene, bene). Per quanto la sua memoria giungesse, e in relazione alla Società per il Recupero delle Antichità di Londra giungeva assai lontano (grandi applausi), non ricordava che alcuno dei loro conferenzieri avesse mai portato il titolo di Re. Avrebbe pertanto invitato Re Auberon a rivolgere brevemente la parola all’assemblea.
The King began by saying that this speech might be regarded as the first declaration of his new policy for the nation. “At this supreme hour of my life I feel that to no one but the members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities can I open my heart (cheers). If the world turns upon my policy, and the storms of popular hostility begin to rise (no, no), I feel that it is here, with my brave Recoverers around me, that I can best meet them, sword in hand” (loud cheers).
His Majesty then went on to explain that, now old age was creeping upon him, he proposed to devote his remaining strength to bringing about a keener sense of local patriotism in the various municipalities of London. How few of them knew the legends of their own boroughs! How many there were who had never heard of the true origin of the Wink of Wandsworth! What a large proportion of the younger generation in Chelsea neglected to perform the old Chelsea Chuff! Pimlico no longer pumped the Pimlies. Battersea had forgotten the name of Blick.
There was a short silence, and then a voice said “Shame.”
The King continued: “Being called, however unworthily, to this high estate, I have resolved that, so far as possible, this neglect shall cease. I desire no military glory. I lay claim to no constitutional equality with Justinian or Alfred. If I can go down to history as the man who saved from extinction a few old English customs, if our descendants can say it was through this man, humble as he was, that the Ten Turnips are still eaten in Fulham, and the Putney parish councillor still shaves one half of his head I shall look my great fathers reverently but not fearfully in the face when I go down to the last house of Kings.”
The King paused, visibly affected, but collecting himself, resumed once more.
“I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on the sublime origins of these legends. The very names of your boroughs bear witness to them. So long as Hammersmith is called Hammersmith, its people will live in the shadow of that primal hero, the Blacksmith, who led the democracy of the Broadway into battle till he drove the chivalry of Kensington before him and overthrew them at that place which in honour of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy is still called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail to remember that the very name of Kensington originated from the lips of their hero. For at the great banquet of reconciliation held after the war, when the disdainful oligarchs declined to join in the songs of the men of the Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popular character), the great Republican leader, with his rough humour, said the words which are written in gold upon his monument, ‘Little birds that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to sing.’ So that the Eastern Knights were called Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. But you also have great memories, O men of Kensington! You showed that you could sing, and sing great war-songs. Even after the dark day of Kensington Gore, history will not forget those three Knights who guarded your disordered retreat from Hyde Park (so called from your hiding there), those three Knights after whom Knightsbridge is named. Nor will it forget the day of your re-emergence, purged in the fire of calamity, cleansed of your oligarchic corruptions, when, sword in hand, you drove the Empire of Hammersmith back mile by mile, swept it past its own Broadway, and broke it at last in a battle so long and bloody that the birds of prey have left their name upon it. Men have called it, with austere irony, the Ravenscourt. I shall not, I trust, wound the patriotism of Bayswater, or the lonelier pride of Brompton, or that of any other historic township, by taking these two special examples. I select them, not because they are more glorious than the rest, but partly from personal association (I am myself descended from one of the three heroes of Knightsbridge), and partly from the consciousness that I am an amateur antiquarian and cannot presume to deal with times and places more remote and more mysterious. It is not for me to settle the question between two such men as Professor Hugg and Sir William Whisky as to whether Notting Hill means Nutting Hill (in allusion to the rich woods which no longer cover it), or whether it is a corruption of Nothing-ill, referring to its reputation among the ancients as an Earthly Paradise. When a Podkins and a Jossy confess themselves doubtful about the boundaries of West Kensington (said to have been traced in the blood of Oxen), I need not be ashamed to confess a similar doubt. I will ask you to excuse me from further history, and to assist me with your encouragement in dealing with the problem which faces us to-day. Is this ancient spirit of the London townships to die out? Are our omnibus conductors and policemen to lose altogether that light which we see so often in their eyes, the dreamy light of
“‘Old unhappy far-off things And battles long ago’
“to quote the words of a little-known poet who was a friend of my youth? I have resolved, as I have said, so far as possible, to preserve the eyes of policemen and omnibus conductors in their present dreamy state. For what is a state without dreams? And the remedy I propose is as follows:
“To-morrow morning at twenty-five minutes past ten, if Heaven spares my life, I purpose to issue a Proclamation. It has been the work of my life and is about half finished. With the assistance of a whisky and soda, I shall conclude the other half to-night, and my people will receive it to-morrow. All these boroughs where you were born, and hope to lay your bones, shall be reinstated in their ancient magnificence…Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, Clapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall immediately build a city wall with gates to be closed at sunset. Each shall have a city guard, armed to the teeth. Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms, and, if convenient, a gathering cry. I will not enter into the details now, my heart is too full. They will be found in the proclamation itself. You will all, however, be subject to enrolment in the local city guards, to be summoned together by a thing called the Tocsin, the meaning of which I am studying in my researches into history. Personally, I believe a tocsin to be some kind of highly paid official. If, therefore, any of you happen to have such a thing as a halberd in the house, I should advise you to practise with it in the garden.”
Here the King buried his face in his handkerchief and hurriedly left the platform, overcome by emotions.
The members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities rose in an indescribable state of vagueness. Some were purple with indignation; an intellectual few were purple with laughter; the great majority found their minds a blank. There remains a tradition that one pale face with burning blue eyes remained fixed upon the lecturer, and after the lecture a red-haired boy ran out of the room.
Il Re cominciò col dire che questo discorso poteva essere considerato come la prima dichiarazione della sua nuova politica per la nazione. «In quest’ora suprema della mia vita sento che a nessuno se non ai membri della Società per il Recupero delle Antichità di Londra posso aprire il mio cuore (applausi). Se il mondo si rivolterà contro la mia politica, e le tempeste dell’ostilità popolare cominceranno a levarsi (no, no), sento che è qui, con i miei valorosi Recuperatori attorno a me, che meglio potrò affrontarle, spada alla mano» (grandi applausi).
Sua Maestà proseguì poi spiegando che, ora che la vecchiaia gli stava strisciando addosso, si proponeva di dedicare le forze che gli restavano a suscitare un più vivo senso del patriottismo locale nei vari municipi di Londra. Quanto pochi di essi conoscevano le leggende dei propri borghi! Quanti erano coloro che non avevano mai sentito parlare della vera origine dell’Ammicco di Wandsworth! Quale gran parte della giovane generazione a Chelsea trascurava di eseguire l’antico Chuff di Chelsea! Pimlico non pompava più i Pimlie. Battersea aveva dimenticato il nome di Blick.
Vi fu un breve silenzio, e poi una voce disse «Vergogna.»
Il Re proseguì: «Essendo chiamato, per quanto immeritatamente, a questo alto rango, ho deciso che, per quanto possibile, questa negligenza cessi. Non desidero gloria militare. Non pretendo alcuna parità costituzionale con Giustiniano o Alfredo. Se potrò passare alla storia come l’uomo che salvò dall’estinzione alcune vecchie usanze inglesi, se i nostri discendenti potranno dire che fu grazie a quest’uomo, per quanto umile, che le Dieci Rape si mangiano ancora a Fulham, e il consigliere parrocchiale di Putney si rade ancora metà del capo, guarderò i miei grandi padri con riverenza ma senza timore in volto quando scenderò all’ultima dimora dei Re.»
Il Re fece una pausa, visibilmente commosso, ma ricomponendosi, riprese ancora una volta.
«Confido che a ben pochi di voi, almeno, debba dilungarmi sulle sublimi origini di queste leggende. I nomi stessi dei vostri borghi ne recano testimonianza. Finché Hammersmith si chiamerà Hammersmith, la sua gente vivrà all’ombra di quel primordiale eroe, il Fabbro, che condusse la democrazia del Broadway in battaglia finché non spinse la cavalleria di Kensington dinanzi a sé e la travolse in quel luogo che in onore del miglior sangue dell’aristocrazia sconfitta è ancora chiamato Kensington Gore. Gli uomini di Hammersmith non mancheranno di ricordare che il nome stesso di Kensington ebbe origine dalle labbra del loro eroe. Poiché al grande banchetto della Riconciliazione tenuto dopo la guerra, quando gli sdegnosi oligarchi rifiutarono di unirsi ai canti degli uomini del Broadway (che sono a tutt’oggi di carattere rozzo e popolare), il grande capo repubblicano, col suo rude umorismo, disse le parole che sono scritte in oro sul suo monumento: “Gli uccellini che sanno cantare e non vogliono cantare, si deve farli cantare.” Cosicché i Cavalieri Orientali furono chiamati Cansing o Kensing da allora in poi. Ma anche voi avete grandi memorie, o uomini di Kensington! Voi mostraste che sapevate cantare, e cantare grandi canti di guerra. Anche dopo l’oscuro giorno di Kensington Gore, la storia non dimenticherà quei tre Cavalieri che protessero la vostra scomposta ritirata da Hyde Park (così chiamato dal vostro nascondervi là), quei tre Cavalieri da cui prende nome Knightsbridge. Né dimenticherà il giorno del vostro riemergere, purgati nel fuoco della sventura, mondati dalle vostre corruzioni oligarchiche, quando, spada alla mano, respingeste l’Impero di Hammersmith miglio dopo miglio, lo spazzaste oltre il suo stesso Broadway, e infine lo spezzaste in una battaglia tanto lunga e sanguinosa che gli uccelli rapaci vi hanno lasciato il proprio nome. Gli uomini l’hanno chiamata, con austera ironia, la Ravenscourt. Non ferirò, confido, il patriottismo di Bayswater, né il più solitario orgoglio di Brompton, o quello di qualsiasi altra storica cittadina, prendendo questi due esempi particolari. Li scelgo non perché siano più gloriosi degli altri, ma in parte per associazione personale (io stesso discendo da uno dei tre eroi di Knightsbridge), e in parte per la consapevolezza di essere un antiquario dilettante e di non poter presumere di trattare di tempi e luoghi più remoti e più misteriosi. Non spetta a me risolvere la questione fra due uomini tali quali il professor Hugg e sir William Whisky, se cioè Notting Hill significhi Nutting Hill (in allusione ai ricchi boschi che non la ricoprono più), oppure se sia una corruzione di Nothing-ill, in riferimento alla sua reputazione fra gli antichi come Paradiso Terrestre. Quando un Podkins e un Jossy si confessano incerti sui confini di West Kensington (che si dice siano stati tracciati nel sangue dei Buoi), non ho da vergognarmi di confessare un dubbio simile. Vi chiederò di scusarmi da ulteriore storia, e di assistermi con il vostro incoraggiamento nell’affrontare il problema che ci sta dinanzi oggi. Deve estinguersi questo antico spirito delle cittadine di Londra? Devono i nostri conducenti d’omnibus e i nostri poliziotti perdere del tutto quella luce che vediamo così spesso nei loro occhi, la luce sognante delle
«“Vecchie infelici cose lontane / E battaglie di tanto tempo fa”
«per citare le parole di un poeta poco noto che fu un amico della mia giovinezza? Ho deciso, come ho detto, per quanto possibile, di preservare gli occhi dei poliziotti e dei conducenti d’omnibus nel loro presente stato sognante. Poiché che cos’è uno Stato senza sogni? E il rimedio che propongo è il seguente:
«Domattina alle dieci e venticinque, se il Cielo mi risparmierà la vita, mi propongo di emanare un Proclama. È stato l’opera della mia vita ed è circa a metà. Con l’aiuto di un whisky e soda, concluderò l’altra metà stanotte, e domani il mio popolo lo riceverà. Tutti questi borghi in cui siete nati, e dove sperate di far riposare le vostre ossa, saranno reintegrati nella loro antica magnificenza…Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, Clapham, Balham, e un centinaio d’altri. Ciascuno costruirà immediatamente una cinta muraria cittadina con porte da chiudersi al tramonto. Ciascuno avrà una guardia cittadina, armata fino ai denti. Ciascuno avrà uno stendardo, uno stemma, e, se conveniente, un grido d’adunata. Non entrerò nei dettagli ora, il mio cuore è troppo colmo. Si troveranno nel proclama stesso. Tutti voi, tuttavia, sarete soggetti all’arruolamento nelle guardie cittadine locali, da convocarsi insieme mediante una cosa chiamata Tocsin, il cui significato sto studiando nelle mie ricerche sulla storia. Personalmente, credo che un tocsin sia una specie di funzionario assai ben pagato. Se, pertanto, qualcuno di voi possiede per caso una cosa come un’alabarda in casa, gli consiglierei di esercitarsi con essa in giardino.»
A questo punto il Re affondò il volto nel fazzoletto e in fretta lasciò il palco, sopraffatto dall’emozione.
I membri della Società per il Recupero delle Antichità di Londra si levarono in uno stato indescrivibile di vaghezza. Alcuni erano paonazzi d’indignazione; un ristretto numero d’intellettuali era paonazzo dal ridere; la grande maggioranza si ritrovò la mente vuota. Resta una tradizione secondo cui un volto pallido dagli ardenti occhi azzurri rimase fisso sul conferenziere, e dopo la conferenza un ragazzo dai capelli rossi corse fuori dalla stanza.
CHAPTER II
THE COUNCIL OF THE PROVOSTS
THE King got up early next morning and came down three steps at a time like a schoolboy. Having eaten his breakfast hurriedly, but with an appetite, he summoned one of the highest officials of the Palace, and presented him with a shilling. “Go and buy me,” he said, “a shilling paint-box, which you will get, unless the mists of time mislead me, in a shop at the corner of the second and dirtier street that leads out of Rochester Row. I have already requested the Master of the Buckhounds to provide me with cardboard. It seemed to me (I know not why) that it fell within his department.”
The King was happy all that morning with his cardboard and his paint-box. He was engaged in designing the uniforms and coats-of-arms for the various municipalities of London. They gave him deep and no inconsiderable thought. He felt the responsibility.
“I cannot think,” he said, “why people should think the names of places in the country more poetical than those in London. Shallow romanticists go away in trains and stop in places called Hugmy-in-the-Hole, or Bumps-on-the-Puddle. And all the time they could, if they liked, go and live at a place with the dim, divine name of St. John’s Wood. I have never been to St. John’s Wood. I dare not. I should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to come upon a blood-red cup and the beating of the wings of the Eagle. But all these things can be imagined by remaining reverently in the Harrow train.”
And he thoughtfully retouched his design for the head-dress of the halberdier of St. John’s Wood, a design in black and red, compounded of a pine tree and the plumage of an eagle. Then he turned to another card. “Let us think of milder matters,” he said. “Lavender Hill! Could any of your glebes and combes and all the rest of it produce so fragrant an idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in purple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men’s nostrils with a new breath of life…a purple hill of incense. It is true that upon my few excursions of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed to hit the precise spot. But it must be there; some poet called it by its name. There is at least warrant enough for the solemn purple plumes (following the botanical formation of lavender) which I have required people to wear in the neighbourhood of Clapham Junction. It is so everywhere, after all. I have never been actually to Southfields, but I suppose a scheme of lemons and olives represent their austral instincts. I have never visited Parson’s Green, or seen either the Green or the Parson, but surely the pale-green shovel-hats I have designed must be more or less in the spirit. I must work in the dark and let my instincts guide me. The great love I bear to my people will certainly save me from distressing their noble spirit, or violating their great traditions.”
As he was reflecting in this vein, the door was flung open, and an official announced Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert.
Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert were not particularly surprised to find the King sitting on the floor amid a litter of water-colour sketches. They were not particularly surprised because the last time they had called on him they had found him sitting on the floor, surrounded by a litter of children’s bricks, and the time before surrounded by a litter of wholly unsuccessful attempts to make paper darts. But the trend of the royal infant’s remarks, uttered from amid this infantile chaos, was not quite the same affair. For some time they let him babble on, conscious that his remarks meant nothing. And then a horrible thought began to steal over the mind of James Barker. He began to think that the King’s remarks did not mean nothing.
“In God’s name, Auberon,” he suddenly volleyed out, startling the quiet hall, “you don’t mean that you are really going to have these city guards and city walls and things?”
“I am, indeed,” said the infant, in a quiet voice. “Why shouldn’t I have them? I have modelled them precisely on your political principles. Do you know what I’ve done, Barker? I’ve behaved like a true Barkerian. I’ve… but perhaps it won’t interest you, the account of my Barkerian conduct.”
“Oh, go on, go on,” cried Barker.
“The account of my Barkerian conduct,” said Auberon, calmly, “seems not only to interest, but to alarm you. Yet it is very simple. It merely consists in choosing all the provosts under any new scheme by the same principle by which you have caused the central despot to be appointed. Each provost, of each city, under my charter, is to be appointed by rotation. Sleep, therefore, my Barker, a rosy sleep.”
Barker’s wild eyes flared.
“But, in God’s name, don’t you see, Quin, that the thing is quite different? In the centre it doesn’t matter so much, just because the whole object of despotism is to get some sort of unity. But if any damned parish can go to any damned man…”
“I see your difficulty,” said King Auberon, calmly. “You feel that your talents may be neglected. Listen!” And he rose with immense magnificence. “I solemnly give to my liege subject, James Barker, my special and splendid favour, the right to override the obvious text of the Charter of the Cities, and to be, in his own right, Lord High Provost of South Kensington. And now, my dear James, you are all right. Good day.”
“But…” began Barker.
“The audience is at an end, Provost,” said the King, smiling.
How far his confidence was justified, it would require a somewhat complicated description to explain. “The Great Proclamation of the Charter of the Free Cities” appeared in due course that morning, and was posted by bill-stickers all over the front of the Palace, the King assisting them with animated directions, and standing in the middle of the road, with his head on one side, contemplating the result. It was also carried up and down the main thoroughfares by sandwichmen, and the King was, with difficulty, restrained from going out in that capacity himself, being, in fact, found by the Groom of the Stole and Captain Bowler, struggling between two boards. His excitement had positively to be quieted like that of a child.
CAPITOLO II
IL CONSIGLIO DEI PREPOSTI
IL Re si alzò di buon’ora la mattina seguente e scese le scale a tre gradini per volta come uno scolaretto. Consumata la colazione in fretta, ma con appetito, convocò uno dei più alti funzionari del Palazzo e gli consegnò uno scellino. «Va’ a comprarmi,» disse, «una scatola di colori da uno scellino, che troverai, a meno che le nebbie del tempo non m’ingannino, in una bottega all’angolo della seconda e più sporca strada che si diparte da Rochester Row. Ho già chiesto al Maestro dei Segugi di procurarmi del cartoncino. Mi è parso (non so perché) che rientrasse nel suo dipartimento.»
Il Re fu felice tutta quella mattina con il suo cartoncino e la sua scatola di colori. Era impegnato a disegnare le divise e gli stemmi per i vari municipi di Londra. Gli davano una profonda e non trascurabile riflessione. Ne sentiva la responsabilità.
«Non riesco a capire,» disse, «perché la gente debba ritenere i nomi dei luoghi in campagna più poetici di quelli di Londra. Superficiali romantici partono in treno e sostano in luoghi chiamati Hugmy-in-the-Hole, o Bumps-on-the-Puddle. E per tutto il tempo potrebbero, se volessero, andare a vivere in un luogo dal nome vago e divino di St. John’s Wood. Non sono mai stato a St. John’s Wood. Non oso. Avrei paura degli innumerevoli abeti della notte, paura d’imbattermi in una coppa rosso sangue e nel battito delle ali dell’Aquila. Ma tutte queste cose si possono immaginare rimanendo riverentemente sul treno di Harrow.»
E ritoccò pensosamente il suo disegno per il copricapo dell’alabardiere di St. John’s Wood, un disegno in nero e rosso, composto da un pino e dal piumaggio di un’aquila. Poi passò a un’altra carta. «Pensiamo a cose più tenui,» disse. «Lavender Hill! Potrebbero le vostre glebe e vallate e tutto il resto produrre un’idea tanto fragrante? Pensate a una montagna di lavanda che s’innalza in purpurea intensità nei cieli d’argento riempiendo le narici degli uomini di un nuovo soffio di vita…una purpurea collina d’incenso. È vero che nelle mie poche escursioni esplorative su un tram da mezzo penny non sono riuscito a colpire il punto preciso. Ma dev’esserci; qualche poeta l’ha chiamata col suo nome. C’è quantomeno abbastanza fondamento per i solenni pennacchi purpurei (secondo la formazione botanica della lavanda) che ho imposto alla gente di portare nei dintorni di Clapham Junction. È così dappertutto, dopotutto. Non sono mai stato effettivamente a Southfields, ma suppongo che uno schema di limoni e olive rappresenti i loro istinti australi. Non ho mai visitato Parson’s Green, né visto il Green o il Parson, ma di certo i cappelli a pala verde pallido che ho disegnato devono essere più o meno nello spirito. Devo lavorare al buio e lasciare che i miei istinti mi guidino. Il grande amore che porto al mio popolo mi salverà di certo dal turbare il loro nobile spirito, o dal violare le loro grandi tradizioni.»
Mentre rifletteva in questa vena, la porta fu spalancata, e un funzionario annunciò il signor Barker e il signor Lambert.
Il signor Barker e il signor Lambert non furono particolarmente sorpresi di trovare il Re seduto per terra in mezzo a un disordine di schizzi ad acquerello. Non furono particolarmente sorpresi perché l’ultima volta che erano venuti a trovarlo l’avevano trovato seduto per terra, circondato da un disordine di mattoncini per bambini, e la volta prima circondato da un disordine di tentativi del tutto falliti di fare frecce di carta. Ma la piega delle osservazioni del regale infante, pronunciate in mezzo a questo infantile caos, non era proprio lo stesso affare. Per un po’ di tempo lo lasciarono cianciare, convinti che le sue osservazioni non significassero nulla. E poi un pensiero orribile cominciò a insinuarsi nella mente di James Barker. Cominciò a pensare che le osservazioni del Re non significassero nulla.
«In nome di Dio, Auberon,» proruppe all’improvviso, facendo trasalire la tranquilla sala, «non vorrai dire che intendi davvero avere queste guardie cittadine e mura cittadine e cose del genere?»
«Intendo, sì,» disse l’infante, con voce tranquilla. «Perché non dovrei averle? Le ho modellate esattamente sui tuoi principi politici. Sai che cosa ho fatto, Barker? Mi sono comportato da vero Barkeriano. Ho… ma forse non t’interesserà, il resoconto della mia condotta Barkeriana.»
«Oh, avanti, avanti,» gridò Barker.
«Il resoconto della mia condotta Barkeriana,» disse Auberon, con calma, «pare non solo interessarti, ma allarmarti. Eppure è molto semplice. Consiste semplicemente nello scegliere tutti i preposti sotto qualsiasi nuovo schema secondo lo stesso principio per cui tu hai fatto nominare il despota centrale. Ogni preposto, di ogni città, secondo la mia carta, dev’essere nominato a rotazione. Dormi, dunque, Barker mio, un roseo sonno.»
Gli occhi folli di Barker fiammeggiarono.
«Ma, in nome di Dio, non vedi, Quin, che la cosa è del tutto diversa? Al centro non importa poi tanto, proprio perché l’intero scopo del dispotismo è ottenere una qualche unità. Ma se una qualsiasi maledetta parrocchia può andare da un qualsiasi maledetto uomo…»
«Vedo la tua difficoltà,» disse Re Auberon, con calma. «Temi che i tuoi talenti possano essere trascurati. Ascolta!» E si levò con immensa magnificenza. «Concedo solennemente al mio suddito fedele, James Barker, il mio speciale e splendido favore, il diritto di scavalcare il testo evidente della Carta delle Città, e di essere, di suo pieno diritto, Lord Alto Preposto di South Kensington. E ora, mio caro James, sei a posto. Buona giornata.»
«Ma…» cominciò Barker.
«L’udienza è terminata, Preposto,» disse il Re, sorridendo.
Fino a che punto la sua fiducia fosse giustificata, richiederebbe una descrizione alquanto complicata da spiegare. «Il Grande Proclama della Carta delle Libere Città» comparve a suo tempo quella mattina, e fu affisso dagli attacchini su tutta la facciata del Palazzo, il Re li assisteva con animate direttive, e stava ritto in mezzo alla strada, la testa piegata di lato, contemplando il risultato. Fu anche portato su e giù per le arterie principali dagli uomini-sandwich, e il Re fu, con difficoltà, trattenuto dall’uscire in tale veste lui stesso, essendo, di fatto, trovato dal Groom della Stola e dal capitano Bowler mentre si dibatteva fra due cartelloni. La sua eccitazione dovette positivamente essere calmata come quella di un bambino.
The reception which the Charter of the Cities met at the hands of the public may mildly be described as mixed. In one sense it was popular enough. In many happy homes that remarkable legal document was read aloud on winter evenings amid uproarious appreciation, when everything had been learnt by heart from that quaint but immortal old classic, Mr. W. W. Jacobs. But when it was discovered that the King had every intention of seriously requiring the provisions to be carried out, of insisting that the grotesque cities, with their tocsins and city guards, should really come into existence, things were thrown into a far angrier confusion. Londoners had no particular objection to the King making a fool of himself, but they became indignant when it became evident that he wished to make fools of them; and protests began to come in.
The Lord High Provost of the Good and Valiant City of West Kensington wrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining that upon State occasions it would, of course, be his duty to observe what formalities the King thought proper, but that it was really awkward for a decent householder not to be allowed to go out and put a post-card in a pillar-box without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, with formal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High Provost desired to catch the post.
The Lord High Provost of North Kensington, who was a prosperous draper, wrote a curt business note, like a man complaining of a railway company, stating that definite inconvenience had been caused him by the presence of the halberdiers, whom he had to take with him everywhere. When attempting to catch an omnibus to the City, he had found that while room could have been found for himself, the halberdiers had a difficulty in getting into the vehicle-believe him, theirs faithfuly.
The Lord High Provost of Shepherd’s Bush said his wife did not like men hanging round the kitchen.
The King was always delighted to listen to these grievances, delivering lenient and kingly answers, but as he always insisted, as the absolute sine qua non, that verbal complaints should be presented to him with the fullest pomp of trumpets, plumes, and halberds, only a few resolute spirits were prepared to run the gauntlet of the little boys in the street.
Among these, however, was prominent the abrupt and business-like gentleman who ruled North Kensington. And he had before long, occasion to interview the King about a matter wider and even more urgent than the problem of the halberdiers and the omnibus. This was the greatest question which then and for long afterwards brought a stir to the blood and a flush to the cheek of all the speculative builders and house agents from Shepherd’s Bush to the Marble Arch, and from Westbourne Grove to High Street, Kensington. I refer to the great affair of the improvements in Notting Hill. The scheme was conducted chiefly by Mr. Buck, the abrupt North Kensington magnate, and by Mr. Wilson, the Provost of Bayswater. A great thoroughfare was to be driven through three boroughs, through West Kensington, North Kensington and Notting Hill, opening at one end into Hammersmith Broadway, and at the other into Westbourne Grove. The negotiations, buyings, sellings, bullying and bribing took ten years, and by the end of it Buck, who had conducted them almost single-handed, had proved himself a man of the strongest type of material energy and material diplomacy. And just as his splendid patience and more splendid impatience had finally brought him victory, when workmen were already demolishing houses and walls along the great line from Hammersmith, a sudden obstacle appeared that had neither been reckoned with nor dreamed of, a small and strange obstacle, which, like a speck of grit in a great machine, jarred the whole vast scheme and brought it to a standstill, and Mr. Buck, the draper, getting with great impatience into his robes of office and summoning with indescribable disgust his halberdiers, hurried over to speak to the King.
Ten years had not tired the King of his joke. There were still new faces to be seen looking out from the symbolic head-gears he had designed, gazing at him from amid the pastoral ribbons of Shepherd’s Bush or from under the sombre hoods of the Blackfriars Road. And the interview which was promised him with the Provost of North Kensington he anticipated with a particular pleasure, for “he never really enjoyed,” he said, “the full richness of the mediaeval garments unless the people compelled to wear them were very angry and businesslike.”
Mr. Buck was both. At the King’s command the door of the audience-chamber was thrown open and a herald appeared in the purple colours of Mr. Buck’s commonwealth emblazoned with the Great Eagle which the King had attributed to North Kensington, in vague reminiscence of Russia, for he always insisted on regarding North Kensington as some kind of semi-arctic neighbourhood. The herald announced that the Provost of that city desired audience of the King.
“From North Kensington?” said the King, rising graciously. “What news does he bring from that land of high hills and fair women? He is welcome.”
The herald advanced into the room, and was immediately followed by twelve guards clad in purple, who were followed by an attendant bearing the banner of the Eagle, who was followed by another attendant bearing the keys of the city upon a cushion, who was followed by Mr. Buck in a great hurry. When the King saw his strong animal face and steady eyes, he knew that he was in the presence of a great man of business, and consciously braced himself.
“Well, well,” he said, cheerily coming down two or three steps from a dais, and striking his hands lightly together, “I am glad to see you. Never mind, never mind. Ceremony is not everything.”
L’accoglienza che la Carta delle Città ebbe presso il pubblico si può, in tono blando, descrivere come mista. In un certo senso fu abbastanza popolare. In molte case felici quel notevole documento legale veniva letto ad alta voce nelle sere d’inverno tra fragorosi apprezzamenti, quando tutto era stato imparato a memoria da quel bizzarro ma immortale vecchio classico, il signor W. W. Jacobs. Ma quando si scoprì che il Re aveva ogni intenzione di esigere seriamente che le disposizioni fossero attuate, d’insistere che le grottesche città, con i loro tocsin e le loro guardie cittadine, dovessero davvero venire all’esistenza, le cose furono gettate in una confusione assai più adirata. I londinesi non avevano particolare obiezione al fatto che il Re facesse lo sciocco di sé stesso, ma s’indignarono quando divenne evidente che desiderava fare degli sciocchi di loro; e cominciarono ad arrivare proteste.
Il Lord Alto Preposto della Buona e Valorosa Città di West Kensington scrisse una rispettosa lettera al Re, spiegando che in occasioni di Stato sarebbe stato, naturalmente, suo dovere osservare le formalità che il Re riteneva opportune, ma che era davvero scomodo, per un dignitoso capofamiglia, non poter uscire a imbucare una cartolina in una buca delle lettere senza essere scortato da cinque araldi, i quali annunciavano, con grida formali e squilli di tromba, che il Lord Alto Preposto desiderava non perdere la levata.
Il Lord Alto Preposto di North Kensington, che era un prospero merciaio, scrisse una secca nota d’affari, come un uomo che si lamenta di una compagnia ferroviaria, dichiarando che gli erano stati arrecati precisi disagi dalla presenza degli alabardieri, che era costretto a portare con sé dappertutto. Nel tentativo di prendere un omnibus per la Città, aveva scoperto che, mentre per lui si sarebbe trovato posto, gli alabardieri avevano difficoltà a salire sul veicolo—che gli credesse, suo devotissimo.
Il Lord Alto Preposto di Shepherd’s Bush disse che sua moglie non gradiva uomini che gironzolavano attorno alla cucina.
Il Re era sempre lietissimo di ascoltare queste lagnanze, elargendo risposte indulgenti e regali, ma poiché insisteva sempre, come assoluto sine qua non, che le lamentele verbali gli fossero presentate con la piena pompa di trombe, pennacchi e alabarde, solo pochi spiriti risoluti erano disposti ad affrontare la gragnola dei monelli per strada.
Fra questi, tuttavia, spiccava il brusco e sbrigativo gentiluomo che governava North Kensington. E ben presto ebbe occasione di conferire con il Re su una questione più ampia e ancor più urgente del problema degli alabardieri e dell’omnibus. Era questa la più grande questione che allora e per lungo tempo dopo recò un fremito al sangue e un rossore alle guance di tutti gli speculatori edilizi e agli agenti immobiliari da Shepherd’s Bush fino al Marble Arch, e da Westbourne Grove fino a High Street, Kensington. Mi riferisco alla grande faccenda dei lavori di miglioria a Notting Hill. Lo schema era condotto principalmente dal signor Buck, il brusco magnate di North Kensington, e dal signor Wilson, il Preposto di Bayswater. Una grande arteria doveva essere aperta attraverso tre borghi, attraverso West Kensington, North Kensington e Notting Hill, sboccando a un capo in Hammersmith Broadway, e all’altro in Westbourne Grove. Le trattative, gli acquisti, le vendite, le prepotenze e le corruzioni richiesero dieci anni, e alla fine Buck, che le aveva condotte quasi da solo, si era dimostrato un uomo del più forte tipo di energia materiale e diplomazia materiale. E proprio mentre la sua splendida pazienza e la sua ancor più splendida impazienza gli avevano finalmente portato la vittoria, quando gli operai già demolivano case e muri lungo la grande linea da Hammersmith, comparve un improvviso ostacolo che non era stato né previsto né sognato, un piccolo e strano ostacolo, che, come un granello di sabbia in una grande macchina, inceppò l’intero vasto schema e lo portò a un punto morto, e il signor Buck, il merciaio, infilandosi con gran impazienza le vesti d’ufficio e convocando con indescrivibile disgusto i suoi alabardieri, si affrettò a recarsi a parlare col Re.
Dieci anni non avevano stancato il Re del suo scherzo. C’erano ancora volti nuovi da vedere che facevano capolino dai copricapi simbolici che aveva disegnato, fissandolo di tra i pastorali nastri di Shepherd’s Bush o da sotto i cupi cappucci della Blackfriars Road. E l’incontro che gli era stato promesso con il Preposto di North Kensington lo pregustava con particolare piacere, poiché «non godeva mai davvero,» diceva, «della piena ricchezza delle vesti medievali a meno che le persone costrette a portarle non fossero molto adirate e sbrigative.»
Il signor Buck era entrambe le cose. Al comando del Re la porta della sala d’udienza fu spalancata e comparve un araldo nei purpurei colori della comunità del signor Buck, blasonati con la Grande Aquila che il Re aveva attribuito a North Kensington, in vaga reminiscenza della Russia, poiché insisteva sempre nel considerare North Kensington come una specie di contrada semi-artica. L’araldo annunciò che il Preposto di quella città desiderava udienza dal Re.
«Da North Kensington?» disse il Re, alzandosi con grazia. «Quali notizie reca da quella terra di alte colline e belle donne? Sia il benvenuto.»
L’araldo avanzò nella stanza, e fu immediatamente seguito da dodici guardie vestite di porpora, seguite da un attendente che portava lo stendardo dell’Aquila, seguito da un altro attendente che portava le chiavi della città su un cuscino, seguito dal signor Buck di gran fretta. Quando il Re vide il suo forte volto animalesco e i suoi occhi fermi, comprese di essere alla presenza di un grande uomo d’affari, e consapevolmente si preparò.
«Bene, bene,» disse, scendendo allegramente due o tre gradini da una pedana, e battendo lievemente le mani, «sono lieto di vedervi. Non importa, non importa. La cerimonia non è tutto.»
“I don’t understand your Majesty,” said the Provost stolidly.
“Never mind, never mind,” said the King, gaily. “A knowledge of Courts is by no means an unmixed merit; you will do it next time, no doubt.”
The man of business looked at him sulkily from under his black brows and said again without show of civility:
“I don’t follow you.”
“Well, well,” replied the King, good-naturedly, “if you ask me I don’t mind telling you, not because I myself attach any importance to these forms in comparison with the Honest Heart. But it is usual…it is usual…that is all, for a man when entering the presence of Royalty to lie down on his back on the floor and elevating his feet towards heaven (as the source of Royal power) to say three times ‘Monarchical institutions improve the manners.’ But there, there-such pomp is far less truly dignified than your simple kindliness.”
The Provost’s face was red with anger and he maintained silence.
“And now,” said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating air of a man softening a snub; “what delightful weather we are having! You must find your official robes warm, my Lord. I designed them for your own snow-bound land.”
“They’re as hot as hell,” said Buck, briefly. “I came here on business.”
“Right,” said the King, nodding a great number of times with quite unmeaning solemnity; “right, right, right. Business, as the sad glad old Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pen to the shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not whence you come nor why. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not when you go nor where.”
The Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and savagely flapped them open.
“Your Majesty may have heard,” he began, sarcastically, “of Hammersmith and a thing called a road. We have been at work ten years buying property and getting compulsory powers and fixing compensation and squaring vested interests, and now at the very end, the thing is stopped by a fool. Old Prout, who was Provost of Notting Hill, was a business man, and we dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he’s dead, and the cursed lot has fallen to a young man named Wayne, who’s up to some game that’s perfectly incomprehensible to me. We offer him a better price than any one ever dreamt of, but he won’t let the road go through. And his Council seem to be backing him up. It’s midsummer madness.”
The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing the Provost’s nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last two words.
“What a perfect phrase that is,” he said. “‘Midsummer madness!’”
“The chief point is,” continued Buck, doggedly, “that the only part that is really in question is one dirty little street…Pump Street…a street with nothing in it but a public house and a penny toy-shop, and that sort of thing. All the respectable people of Notting Hill have accepted our compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out over Pump Street. Says he’s Provost of Notting Hill. He’s only Provost of Pump Street.”
“A good thought,” replied Auberon. “I like the idea of a Provost of Pump Street. Why not let him alone?”
“And drop the whole scheme!” cried out Buck, with a burst of brutal spirit. “I’ll be damned if we do. No. I’m for sending in workmen to pull down without more ado.”
“Strike for the purple Eagle,” cried the King, hot with historical associations.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Buck, losing his temper altogether. “If your Majesty would spend less time in insulting respectable people with your silly coats-of-arms, and more time over the business of the nation…”
The King’s brow wrinkled thoughtfully.
“The situation is not bad,” he said; “the haughty burgher defying the King in his own Palace. The burgher’s head should be thrown back and the right arm extended; the left may be lifted towards Heaven, but that I leave to your private religious sentiment. I have sunk back in this chair, stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please.”
Buck’s mouth opened like a dog’s, but before he could speak another herald appeared at the door.
“The Lord High Provost of Bayswater,” he said, “desires an audience.”
“Admit him,” said Auberon. “This is a jolly day.”
The halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of green, and the banner which was borne after them was emblazoned with a green bay-wreath on a silver ground, which the King, in the course of his researches into a bottle of champagne, had discovered to be the quaint old punning cognisance of the city of Bayswater.
“It is a fit symbol,” said the King, “your immortal bay-wreath. Fulham may seek for wealth, and Kensington for art, but when did the men of Bayswater care for anything but glory?”
Immediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden by it, came the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes of green and silver with white fur and crowned with bay. He was an anxious little man with red whiskers, originally the owner of a small sweet-stuff shop.
“Our cousin of Bayswater,” said the King, with delight; “what can we get for you?” The King was heard also distinctly to mutter, “Cold beef, cold ‘am, cold chicken,” his voice dying into silence.
“I came to see your Majesty,” said the Provost of Bayswater, whose name was Wilson, “about that Pump Street affair.”
“I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty,” said Buck, curtly, but recovering his civility. “I am not sure, however, whether his Majesty knows how much the matter affects you also.”
“It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme was started for the benefit of the ‘ole neighbourhood. So Mr. Buck and me we put our ‘eads together…”
The King clasped his hands.
“Perfect,” he cried in ecstacy. “Your heads together! I can see it! Can’t you do it now? Oh, do do it now.”
«Non capisco Vostra Maestà,» disse il Preposto con flemma.
«Non importa, non importa,» disse il Re, gaiamente. «La conoscenza delle Corti non è affatto un merito puro; la prossima volta ci riuscirete, senza dubbio.»
L’uomo d’affari lo guardò imbronciato da sotto le nere sopracciglia e disse di nuovo senza mostra di cortesia:
«Non vi seguo.»
«Bene, bene,» rispose il Re, bonariamente, «se me lo chiedete non mi dispiace dirvelo, non perché io stesso attribuisca alcuna importanza a queste forme in confronto al Cuore Onesto. Ma è usanza…è usanza…ecco tutto, che un uomo, entrando alla presenza della Regalità, si sdrai supino sul pavimento e, sollevando i piedi verso il cielo (come fonte del potere regale), dica tre volte ‘Le istituzioni monarchiche migliorano i costumi.’ Ma via, via—una tale pompa è assai meno veramente dignitosa della vostra semplice cordialità.»
Il volto del Preposto era rosso di collera ed egli mantenne il silenzio.
«E ora,» disse il Re, con leggerezza, e con l’esasperante aria di un uomo che addolcisce un affronto; «che tempo delizioso abbiamo! Dovete trovare le vostre vesti d’ufficio calde, mio Lord. Le ho disegnate per la vostra terra coperta di neve.»
«Sono calde come l’inferno,» disse Buck, brevemente. «Sono venuto qui per affari.»
«Giusto,» disse il Re, annuendo un gran numero di volte con del tutto insensata solennità; «giusto, giusto, giusto. Gli affari, come diceva il triste lieto vecchio Persiano, sono affari. Siate puntuale. Alzatevi presto. Puntate la penna alla spalla. Puntate la penna alla spalla, poiché voi non sapete donde venite né perché. Puntate la penna alla spalla, poiché voi non sapete quando ve ne andate né dove.»
Il Preposto estrasse un mucchio di carte dalla tasca e con ferocia le aprì di scatto.
«Vostra Maestà avrà forse sentito parlare,» cominciò, sarcasticamente, «di Hammersmith e di una cosa chiamata strada. Abbiamo lavorato dieci anni per acquistare proprietà e ottenere poteri di esproprio e fissare indennizzi e sistemare interessi acquisiti, e ora, proprio alla fine, la cosa è bloccata da uno sciocco. Il vecchio Prout, che era Preposto di Notting Hill, era un uomo d’affari, e trattammo con lui in modo del tutto soddisfacente. Ma è morto, e la maledetta faccenda è toccata a un giovane di nome Wayne, che sta dietro a qualche gioco per me perfettamente incomprensibile. Gli offriamo un prezzo migliore di quanto chiunque abbia mai sognato, ma lui non vuole lasciar passare la strada. E il suo Consiglio pare dargli man forte. È follia di mezza estate.»
Il Re, che stava alquanto distrattamente disegnando il naso del Preposto col dito sul vetro della finestra, udì le ultime due parole.
«Che frase perfetta,» disse. «‘Follia di mezza estate!’»
«Il punto principale è,» continuò Buck, ostinato, «che l’unica parte che è realmente in questione è una sudicia stradicciola…Pump Street…una strada in cui non c’è nulla se non un’osteria pubblica e una bottega di giocattoli da un penny, e cose di quel genere. Tutta la gente rispettabile di Notting Hill ha accettato il nostro indennizzo. Ma l’ineffabile Wayne s’impunta su Pump Street. Dice di essere Preposto di Notting Hill. È soltanto Preposto di Pump Street.»
«Un buon pensiero,» rispose Auberon. «Mi piace l’idea di un Preposto di Pump Street. Perché non lasciarlo in pace?»
«E lasciar cadere l’intero schema!» esclamò Buck, con uno scoppio di brutale foga. «Che io sia dannato se lo faccio. No. Sono per mandare gli operai a demolire senza altri indugi.»
«Colpite per l’Aquila purpurea,» gridò il Re, acceso di associazioni storiche.
«Vi dirò io com’è,» disse Buck, perdendo del tutto le staffe. «Se Vostra Maestà spendesse meno tempo a insultare la gente rispettabile con i suoi sciocchi stemmi, e più tempo sugli affari della nazione…»
La fronte del Re si corrugò pensosamente.
«La situazione non è male,» disse; «l’altero borghese che sfida il Re nel suo stesso Palazzo. La testa del borghese dovrebbe essere gettata all’indietro e il braccio destro teso; il sinistro può essere sollevato verso il Cielo, ma questo lo lascio al vostro privato sentimento religioso. Io mi sono lasciato affondare in questa sedia, colpito da furia impotente. Ora di nuovo, prego.»
La bocca di Buck si aprì come quella di un cane, ma prima che potesse parlare un altro araldo comparve alla porta.
«Il Lord Alto Preposto di Bayswater,» disse, «desidera un’udienza.»
«Fatelo entrare,» disse Auberon. «Questa è una giornata allegra.»
Gli alabardieri di Bayswater portavano una divisa prevalentemente verde, e lo stendardo che veniva portato dietro di loro era blasonato con una verde corona d’alloro su campo d’argento, che il Re, nel corso delle sue ricerche in una bottiglia di champagne, aveva scoperto essere la bizzarra vecchia insegna a doppio senso della città di Bayswater.
«È un simbolo adatto,» disse il Re, «la vostra immortale corona d’alloro. Fulham può cercare la ricchezza, e Kensington l’arte, ma quando mai gli uomini di Bayswater s’importarono di qualcosa che non fosse la gloria?»
Immediatamente dietro lo stendardo, e quasi completamente nascosto da esso, venne il Preposto della città, vestito di splendide vesti di verde e argento con pelliccia bianca e incoronato d’alloro. Era un ometto ansioso dai favoriti rossi, in origine il proprietario di una piccola bottega di dolciumi.
«Nostro cugino di Bayswater,» disse il Re, con diletto; «che cosa possiamo fare per voi?» Si udì anche il Re mormorare distintamente: «Manzo freddo, prosciutto freddo, pollo freddo,» la sua voce spegnendosi nel silenzio.
«Sono venuto a vedere Vostra Maestà,» disse il Preposto di Bayswater, il cui nome era Wilson, «a proposito di quella faccenda di Pump Street.»
«Stavo giusto spiegando la situazione a Sua Maestà,» disse Buck, seccamente, ma recuperando la cortesia. «Non sono certo, tuttavia, che Sua Maestà sappia quanto la faccenda riguardi anche voi.»
«Riguarda entrambi, vedete, Maestà, giacché questo schema è stato avviato a beneficio dell’intero quartiere. Così io e il signor Buck abbiamo messo insieme le teste…»
Il Re giunse le mani.
«Perfetto,» gridò in estasi. «Le vostre teste insieme! Lo vedo! Non potete farlo adesso? Oh, fatelo adesso.»
A smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the halberdiers, but Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and Mr. Buck merely diabolical.
“I suppose,” he began, bitterly, but the King stopped him with a gesture of listening.
“Hush,” he said, “I think I hear some one else coming. I seem to hear another herald, a herald whose boots creak.”
As he spoke another voice cried from the doorway:
“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an audience.”
“The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!” cried the King. “Why, that is my old friend James Barker! What does he want, I wonder? If the tender memories of friendship have not grown misty, I fancy he wants something for himself, probably money. How are you, James?”
Mr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid blue, and whose blue banner bore three gold birds singing, rushed, in his blue and gold robes, into the room. Despite the absurdity of all the dresses, it was worth noticing that he carried his better than the rest, though he loathed it as much as any of them. He was a gentleman, and a very handsome man, and could not help unconsciously wearing even his preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, but with the slight initial hesitation he always showed in addressing the King, due to suppressing an impulse to address his old acquaintance in the old way.
“Your Majesty…pray forgive my intrusion. It is about this man at Pump Street. I see you have Buck here, so you have probably heard what is necessary. I…”
The King swept his eyes anxiously round the room, which now blazed with the trappings of three cities.
“There is one thing necessary,” he said.
“Yes, your Majesty,” said Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, a little eagerly. “What does yer Majesty think necessary?”
“A little yellow,” said the King, firmly. “Send for the Provost of West Kensington.”
Amid some materialistic protests he was sent for and arrived with his yellow halberdiers in his saffron robes, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. After all, placed as he was, he had a good deal to say on the matter.
“Welcome, West Kensington,” said the King. “I have long wished to see you, touching that matter of the Hammersmith land to the south of the Rowton House. Will you hold it feudally from the Provost of Hammersmith? You have only to do him homage by putting his left arm in his overcoat and then marching home in state.”
“No, your Majesty; I’d rather not,” said the Provost of West Kensington, who was a pale young man with a fair moustache and whiskers, who kept a successful dairy.
The King struck him heartily on the shoulder.
“The fierce old West Kensington blood,” he said; “they are not wise who ask it to do homage.”
Tnen he glanced again round the room. It was full of a roaring sunset of colour, and he enjoyed the sight, possible to so few artists…the sight of his own dreams moving and blazing before him. In the foreground the yellow of the West Kensington liveries outlined itself against the dark blue draperies of South Kensington. The crests of these again brightened suddenly into green as the almost woodland colours of Bayswater rose behind them. And over and behind all, the great purple plumes of North Kensington showed almost funereal and black.
“There is something lacking,” said the King, “something lacking. What can…Ah, there it is!…there it is!”
In the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in flaming red. He cried in a loud but unemotional voice:
“The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires an audience.”
Un soffocato suono di divertimento parve venire dagli alabardieri, ma il signor Wilson pareva soltanto sconcertato, e il signor Buck soltanto diabolico.
«Suppongo,» cominciò, amaramente, ma il Re lo fermò con un gesto di ascolto.
«Zitto,» disse, «mi pare di sentire qualcun altro che arriva. Mi pare di sentire un altro araldo, un araldo i cui stivali scricchiolano.»
Mentre parlava un’altra voce gridò dalla soglia:
«Il Lord Alto Preposto di South Kensington desidera un’udienza.»
«Il Lord Alto Preposto di South Kensington!» gridò il Re. «Ma è il mio vecchio amico James Barker! Che cosa vorrà, mi domando? Se le tenere memorie dell’amicizia non si sono fatte nebbiose, immagino che voglia qualcosa per sé, probabilmente denaro. Come stai, James?»
Il signor James Barker, la cui guardia era vestita di uno splendido azzurro, e il cui azzurro stendardo recava tre uccelli d’oro canterini, si precipitò, nelle sue vesti azzurre e oro, nella stanza. Nonostante l’assurdità di tutti gli abiti, valeva la pena notare che egli portava il suo meglio degli altri, benché lo detestasse quanto ognuno di loro. Era un gentiluomo, e un uomo assai bello, e non poteva fare a meno d’indossare inconsapevolmente anche la sua veste ridicola come andava indossata. Parlò rapidamente, ma con la lieve esitazione iniziale che mostrava sempre nel rivolgersi al Re, dovuta al reprimere un impulso a rivolgersi al suo vecchio conoscente al modo antico.
«Vostra Maestà…vogliate perdonare la mia intrusione. Si tratta di quest’uomo a Pump Street. Vedo che avete qui Buck, dunque avete probabilmente udito ciò che è necessario. Io…»
Il Re fece scorrere gli occhi ansiosamente per la stanza, che ora fiammeggiava degli addobbi di tre città.
«C’è una cosa necessaria,» disse.
«Sì, Vostra Maestà,» disse il signor Wilson di Bayswater, un po’ impaziente. «Che cosa ritiene necessario Vostra Maestà?»
«Un po’ di giallo,» disse il Re, con fermezza. «Mandate a chiamare il Preposto di West Kensington.»
Fra qualche protesta materialistica fu mandato a chiamare e arrivò con i suoi alabardieri gialli nelle sue vesti color zafferano, asciugandosi la fronte con un fazzoletto. Dopotutto, nella posizione in cui si trovava, aveva un bel po’ da dire sulla faccenda.
«Benvenuto, West Kensington,» disse il Re. «Da tempo desideravo vedervi, riguardo a quella faccenda della terra di Hammersmith a sud della Rowton House. La terrete in feudo dal Preposto di Hammersmith? Non dovete far altro che rendergli omaggio infilandogli il braccio sinistro nel soprabito e poi marciando a casa in pompa magna.»
«No, Vostra Maestà; preferirei di no,» disse il Preposto di West Kensington, che era un giovane pallido dai baffi e favoriti biondi, e che teneva una fiorente latteria.
Il Re lo colpì cordialmente sulla spalla.
«Il fiero vecchio sangue di West Kensington,» disse; «non sono saggi coloro che gli chiedono di rendere omaggio.»
Poi girò di nuovo lo sguardo per la stanza. Era piena di un fragoroso tramonto di colori, e godette della vista, possibile a così pochi artisti…la vista dei propri sogni che si muovevano e fiammeggiavano dinanzi a lui. In primo piano il giallo delle livree di West Kensington si stagliava contro i drappeggi azzurro scuro di South Kensington. I cimieri di questi di nuovo si ravvivavano d’un tratto in verde mentre i colori quasi boschivi di Bayswater si levavano dietro di essi. E sopra e dietro tutti, i grandi pennacchi purpurei di North Kensington apparivano quasi funerei e neri.
«C’è qualcosa che manca,» disse il Re, «qualcosa che manca. Che cosa può…Ah, eccolo!…eccolo!»
Nella soglia era comparsa una nuova figura, un araldo in rosso fiammante. Gridò con voce forte ma priva d’emozione:
«Il Lord Alto Preposto di Notting Hill desidera un’udienza.»
CHAPTER III
ENTER A LUNATIC
THE King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfather of King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day to his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the Provost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable addition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who carried the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merely for the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the room with a comparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of the King’s intellectual pleasure consisted in the contrast between the arrogance of their swords and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. But these Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold had the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to be taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into position with an almost startling dignity, and discipline.
They carried a yellow banner with a great red lion, named by the King as the Notting Hill emblem, after a small public-house in the neighbourhood, which he once frequented.
Between the two lines of his followers there advanced towards the King a tall, red-haired young man, with high features, and bold blue eyes. He would have been called handsome, but that a certain indefinable air of his nose being too big for his face, and his feet for his legs, gave him a look of awkwardness and extreme youth. His robes were red, according to the King’s heraldry, and alone among the Provosts, he was girt with a great sword. This was Adam Wayne, the intractable Provost of Notting Hill.
The King flung himself back in his chair, and rubbed his hands.
“What a day, what a day!” he said to himself. “Now there’ll be a row. I’d no idea it would be such fun as it is. These Provosts are so very indignant, so very reasonable, so very right. This fellow, by the look in his eyes, is even more indignant than the rest. No sign in those large blue eyes, at any rate, of ever having heard of a joke. He’ll remonstrate with the others, and they’ll remonstrate with him, and they’ll all make themselves sumptuously happy remonstrating with me.”
“Welcome, my Lord,” he said aloud. “What news from the Hill of a Hundred Legends? What have you for the ear of your King? I know that troubles have arisen between you and these others, our cousins, but these troubles it shall be our pride to compose. And I doubt not, and cannot doubt, that your love for me is not less tender, no less ardent than theirs.”
Mr. Buck made a bitter face, and James Barker’s nostrils curled; Wilson began to giggle faintly, and the Provost of West Kensington followed in a smothered way. But the big blue eyes of Adam Wayne never changed, and he called out in an odd, boyish voice down the hall:
“I bring homage to my King. I bring him the only thing I have…my sword.”
And with a great gesture he flung it down on the ground, and knelt on one knee behind it.
There was a dead silence.
“I beg your pardon,” said the King, blankly.
“You speak well, sire,” said Adam Wayne, “as you ever speak, when you say that my love is not less than the love of these. Small would it be if it were not more. For I am the heir of your scheme…the child of the great Charter. I stand here for the rights the Charter gave me, and I swear, by your sacred crown, that where I stand, I stand fast.”
The eyes of all five men stood out of their heads.
Then Buck said, in his jolly, jarring voice: “Is the whole world mad?”
The King sprang to his feet, and his eyes blazed.
“Yes,” he cried, in a voice of exultation, “the whole world is mad, but Adam Wayne and me. It is true as death what I told you long ago, James Barker, seriousness sends men mad. You are mad, because you care for politics, as mad as a man who collects tram tickets. Buck is mad, because he cares for money, as mad as a man who lives on opium. Wilson is mad, because he thinks himself right, as mad as a man who thinks himself God Almighty. The Provost of West Kensington is mad, because he thinks he is respectable, as mad as a man who thinks he is a chicken. All men are mad, but the humourist, who cares for nothing and possesses everything. I thought that there was only one humourist in England. Fools!…dolts!…open your cows’ eyes; there are two! In Notting Hill… in that unpromising elevation…there has been born an artist! You thought to spoil my joke, and bully me out of it, by becoming more and more modern, more and more practical, more and more bustling and rational. Oh, what a feast it was to answer you by becoming more and more august, more and more gracious, more and more ancient and mellow! But this lad has seen how to bowl me out. He has answered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric. He has lifted the only shield I cannot break, the shield of an impenetrable pomposity. Listen to him. You have come, my Lord, about Pump Street?”
“About the city of Notting Hill,” answered Wayne, proudly. “Of which Pump Street is a living and rejoicing part.”
“Not a very large part,” said Barker, contemptuously.
“That which is large enough for the rich to covet,” said Wayne, drawing up his head, “is large enough for the poor to defend.”
The King slapped both his legs, and waved his feet for a second in the air.
“Every respectable person in Notting Hill,” cut in Buck, with his cold, coarse voice, “is for us and against you. I have plenty of friends in Notting Hill.”
“Your friends are those who have taken your gold for other men’s hearthstones, my Lord Buck,” said Provost Wayne. “I can well believe they are your friends.”
“They’ve never sold dirty toys, anyhow,” said Buck, laughing shortly.
CAPITOLO III
ENTRA IN SCENA UN PAZZO
IL Re delle Fate, che era, c’è da presumere, il padrino di Re Auberon, doveva essere stato molto benevolo in quel particolare giorno verso il suo fantastico figlioccio, poiché con l’ingresso della guardia del Prevosto di Notting Hill vi fu un certo, più o meno inspiegabile, accrescimento della sua gioia. I miseri sterratori e gli uomini-sandwich che portavano i colori di Bayswater o di South Kensington, ingaggiati soltanto per la giornata per assecondare il passatempo Regale, si trascinarono nella sala con un’aria comparativamente da cani bastonati, e gran parte del piacere intellettuale del Re consisteva nel contrasto tra l’arroganza delle loro spade e dei loro pennacchi e la mite miseria dei loro volti. Ma questi alabardieri di Notting Hill nelle loro rosse tuniche cinte d’oro avevano piuttosto l’aria di un’assurda gravità. Sembravano, per così dire, prendere parte allo scherzo. Marciarono e ruotarono in posizione con una dignità e una disciplina quasi sorprendenti.
Recavano uno stendardo giallo con un grande leone rosso, chiamato dal Re emblema di Notting Hill, dal nome di una piccola osteria pubblica del vicinato che egli un tempo frequentava.
Fra le due file dei suoi seguaci avanzò verso il Re un giovane alto, dai capelli rossi, dai tratti marcati e dagli arditi occhi azzurri. Lo si sarebbe detto bello, se non fosse stato per una certa indefinibile aria che il suo naso avesse di essere troppo grande per il volto, e i piedi per le gambe, il che gli conferiva un aspetto goffo e di estrema giovinezza. Le sue vesti erano rosse, secondo l’araldica del Re, e solo fra i Prevosti egli era cinto di una grande spada. Costui era Adam Wayne, l’intrattabile Prevosto di Notting Hill.
Il Re si lasciò ricadere all’indietro sulla sedia e si stropicciò le mani.
«Che giornata, che giornata!» disse fra sé. «Ora ci sarà una lite. Non avevo idea che sarebbe stata tanto divertente quanto è. Questi Prevosti sono così indignati, così ragionevoli, così nel giusto. Questo tale, a giudicare dallo sguardo, è ancor più indignato degli altri. Nessun segno, in quei grandi occhi azzurri, di aver mai sentito parlare di uno scherzo. Rimprovererà gli altri, e loro rimprovereranno lui, e tutti si renderanno sontuosamente felici rimproverando me.»
«Benvenuto, mio Lord,» disse ad alta voce. «Che notizie dalla Collina delle Cento Leggende? Che cosa avete per l’orecchio del vostro Re? So che sono sorti dei contrasti fra voi e questi altri, nostri cugini, ma sarà nostro orgoglio comporli. E non dubito, e non posso dubitare, che il vostro amore per me non sia meno tenero, non meno ardente del loro.»
Il signor Buck fece una smorfia amara, e le narici di James Barker si arricciarono; Wilson cominciò a ridacchiare debolmente, e il Prevosto di West Kensington lo seguì in modo soffocato. Ma i grandi occhi azzurri di Adam Wayne non mutarono, ed egli gridò con una strana voce fanciullesca per tutta la sala:
«Reco omaggio al mio Re. Gli reco l’unica cosa che ho… la mia spada.»
E con un ampio gesto la gettò a terra, e si inginocchiò su un solo ginocchio dietro di essa.
Vi fu un silenzio di morte.
«Chiedo scusa,» disse il Re, sconcertato.
«Parlate bene, sire,» disse Adam Wayne, «come sempre parlate, quando dite che il mio amore non è minore dell’amore di costoro. Ben piccolo sarebbe, se non fosse maggiore. Poiché io sono l’erede del vostro disegno… il figlio della grande Carta. Sto qui in nome dei diritti che la Carta mi ha dato, e giuro, sulla vostra sacra corona, che dove sto, sto saldo.»
Gli occhi di tutti e cinque gli uomini schizzarono fuori dalle orbite.
Poi Buck disse, con la sua voce gioviale e stridula: «È impazzito il mondo intero?»
Il Re balzò in piedi, e i suoi occhi fiammeggiarono.
«Sì,» gridò, con voce di esultanza, «il mondo intero è pazzo, tranne Adam Wayne e me. È vero come la morte ciò che ti dissi tempo fa, James Barker: la serietà fa impazzire gli uomini. Tu sei pazzo, perché ti curi di politica, pazzo come chi colleziona biglietti del tram. Buck è pazzo, perché si cura del denaro, pazzo come chi vive d’oppio. Wilson è pazzo, perché si crede nel giusto, pazzo come chi si crede Dio Onnipotente. Il Prevosto di West Kensington è pazzo, perché si crede rispettabile, pazzo come chi si crede un pollo. Tutti gli uomini sono pazzi, tranne l’umorista, che non si cura di nulla e possiede ogni cosa. Credevo che ci fosse un solo umorista in Inghilterra. Sciocchi!… stupidi!… spalancate quei vostri occhi di bue; ce ne sono due! A Notting Hill… su quella poco promettente altura… è nato un Artista! Credevate di guastarmi lo scherzo, e di scacciarmene a forza, facendovi sempre più moderni, sempre più pratici, sempre più indaffarati e razionali. Oh, che festa fu rispondervi facendomi sempre più augusto, sempre più grazioso, sempre più antico e maturo! Ma questo ragazzo ha capito come mettermi fuori gioco. Mi ha risposto per le rime, vanto per vanto, retorica per retorica. Ha levato l’unico scudo che non posso spezzare, lo scudo di un’ impenetrabile pomposità. Ascoltatelo. Siete venuto, mio Lord, a proposito di Pump Street?»
«A proposito della città di Notting Hill,» rispose Wayne, con orgoglio. «Di cui Pump Street è una parte viva ed esultante.»
«Non una parte molto grande,» disse Barker, sprezzante.
«Ciò che è abbastanza grande perché il ricco lo brami,» disse Wayne, raddrizzando la testa, «è abbastanza grande perché il povero lo difenda.»
Il Re si diede una manata su entrambe le gambe, e agitò i piedi per un attimo nell’aria.
«Ogni persona rispettabile di Notting Hill,» tagliò corto Buck, con la sua voce fredda e volgare, «è con noi e contro di voi. Ho un mucchio di amici a Notting Hill.»
«I vostri amici sono coloro che hanno preso il vostro oro per i focolari altrui, mio Lord Buck,» disse il Prevosto Wayne. «Posso ben credere che siano vostri amici.»
«Non hanno mai venduto giocattoli sudici, in ogni caso,» disse Buck, con una breve risata.
“They’ve sold dirtier things,” said Wayne, calmly; “they have sold themselves.”
“It’s no good, my Buckling,” said the King, rolling about on his chair. “You can’t cope with this chivalrous eloquence. You can’t cope with an artist. You can’t cope with the humourist of Notting Hill. O, Nunc dimittis…that I have lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, you stand firm?”
“Let them wait and see,” said Wayne. “If I stood firm before, do you think I shall weaken now that I have seen the face of the King? For I fight for something greater, if greater there can be, than the hearthstones of my people and the Lordship of the Lion. I fight for your royal vision, for the great dream you dreamt of the League of the Free Cities. You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggar and you had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance and you had flung me a favour, do you think I would have let it be taken by any ruffians on the road? This leadership and liberty of Notting Hill is a gift from your Majesty. And if it is taken from me, by God! it shall be taken in battle, and the noise of that battle shall be heard in the flats of Chelsea and in the studios of St. John’s Wood.”
“It is too much…it is too much,” said the King. “Nature is weak. I must speak to you, brother artist, without further disguise. Let me ask you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, don’t you think it splendid?”
“Splendid!” cried Adam Wayne. “It has the splendour of God.”
“Bowled out again,” said the King. “You will keep up the pose. Funnily, of course, it is serious. But seriously, isn’t it funny?”
“What?” asked Wayne, with the eyes of a baby.
“Hang it all, don’t play any more. The whole business…the Charter of the Cities. Isn’t it immense?”
“Immense is no unworthy word for that glorious design.”
“Oh, hang you…but, of course, I see. You want me to clear the room of these reasonable sows. You want the two humourists alone together. Leave us, gentlemen.”
Buck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the whole pageant of blue and green, of red, gold and purple rolled out of the room, leaving only two in the great hall, the King sitting in his seat on the dais, and the red-clad figure still kneeling on the floor before his fallen sword.
The King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on the back.
“Before the stars were made,” he cried, “we were made for each other. It is too beautiful. Think of the valiant independence of Pump Street. That is the real thing. It is the deification of the ludicrous.”
The kneeling figure sprang to his feet with a fierce stagger.
“Ludicrous!” he cried, with a fiery face.
“Oh, come, come,” said the King, impatiently. “You needn’t keep it up with me. The augurs must wink sometimes from sheer fatigue of the eyelids. Let us enjoy this for half an hour, not as actors, but as dramatic critics. Isn’t it a joke?”
Adam Wayne looked down like a boy, and answered in a constrained voice:
“I do not understand your Majesty. I cannot believe that while I fight for your royal charter your Majesty deserts me for these dogs of the gold hunt.”
“Oh, damn your…But what’s this? What the devil’s this?”
The King stared into the young Provost’s face, and in the twilight of the room began to see that his face was quite white, and his lip shaking.
“What in God’s name is the matter?” cried Auberon, holding his wrist.
Wayne flung back his face, and the tears were shining on it.
“I am only a boy,” he said, “but it’s true. I would paint the Red Lion on my shield if I had only my blood.”
King Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring, thunderstruck.
“My God in Heaven!” he said; “is it possible that there is within the four seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill seriously?”
“And my God in Heaven!” said Wayne passionately; “is it possible that there is within the four seas of Britain a man who does not take it seriously?”
The King said nothing, but merely went back up the steps of the dais like a man dazed. He fell back in his chair again and kicked his heels.
“If this sort of thing is to go on,” he said weakly, “I shall begin to doubt the superiority of art to life. In Heaven’s name, do not play with me. Do you really mean that you are…God help me!…a Notting Hill patriot…that you are…”
Wayne made a violent gesture, and the King soothed him wildly.
“All right…all right…I see you are; but let me take it in. You do really propose to fight these modern improvers with their boards and inspectors and surveyors and all the rest of it…”
“Are they so terrible?” asked Wayne, scornfully.
The King continued to stare at him as if he were a human curiosity.
“And I suppose,” he said, “that you think that the dentists and small tradesmen and maiden ladies who inhabit Notting Hill, will rally with war-hymns to your standard?”
“If they have blood they will,” said the Provost.
“And I suppose,” said the King, with his head back among the cushions, “that it never crossed your mind that…his voice seemed to lose itself luxuriantly…never crossed your mind that any one ever thought that the idea of a Notting Hill idealism was…er…slightly…slightly ridiculous.”
“Of course they think so,” said Wayne. “What was the meaning of mocking the prophets?”
“Where?” asked the King, leaning forward. “Where in Heaven’s name did you get this miraculously inane idea?”
“You have been my tutor, Sire,” said the Provost, “in all that is high and honourable.”
“Eh?” said the King.
“It was your Majesty who first stirred my dim patriotism into flame. Ten years ago, when I was a boy (I am only nineteen), I was playing on the slope of Pump Street, with a wooden sword and a paper helmet, dreaming of great wars. In an angry trance I struck out with my sword and stood petrified, for I saw that I had struck you, Sire, my King, as you wandered in a noble secrecy, watching over your people’s welfare. But I need have had no fear. Then was I taught to understand kingliness. You neither shrank nor frowned. You summoned no guards. You invoked no punishments. But in august and burning words, which are written in my soul, never to be erased, you told me ever to turn my sword against the enemies of my inviolate city. Like a priest pointing to the altar, you pointed to the hill of Notting. ’ So long,’ you said, ’ as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of Bayswater.’ I have not forgotten the words, and I have reason now to remember them, for the hour is come and the crown of your prophecy. The sacred hill is ringed with the armies of Bayswater, and I am ready to die.”
«Hanno venduto cose più sudicie,» disse Wayne, con calma; «hanno venduto se stessi.»
«Non c’è niente da fare, mio Buckling,» disse il Re, rotolandosi sulla sedia. «Non potete tener testa a questa eloquenza cavalleresca. Non potete tener testa a un Artista. Non potete tener testa all’umorista di Notting Hill. Oh, Nunc dimittis… che io abbia vissuto per vedere questo giorno! Prevosto Wayne, restate saldo?»
«Lasciate che aspettino e vedano,» disse Wayne. «Se sono stato saldo prima, credete che vacillerò ora che ho visto il volto del Re? Poiché io combatto per qualcosa di più grande, se più grande può esservi, dei focolari del mio popolo e della Signoria del Leone. Combatto per la vostra visione regale, per il grande sogno che sognaste della Lega delle Città Libere. Voi mi avete dato questa libertà. Se fossi stato un mendicante e voi mi aveste gettato una moneta, se fossi stato un contadino a una danza e voi mi aveste gettato un favore, credete che l’avrei lasciato prendere da un qualsiasi furfante sulla strada? Questa guida e questa libertà di Notting Hill sono un dono di Vostra Maestà. E se mi verranno tolte, per Dio! saranno tolte in battaglia, e il fragore di quella battaglia si udrà negli appartamenti di Chelsea e negli studî di St. John’s Wood.»
«È troppo… è troppo,» disse il Re. «La Natura è debole. Devo parlarvi, fratello Artista, senza ulteriore maschera. Lasciate che vi ponga una domanda solenne. Adam Wayne, Lord Alto Prevosto di Notting Hill, non lo trovate splendido?»
«Splendido!» esclamò Adam Wayne. «Ha lo splendore di Dio.»
«Di nuovo messo fuori gioco,» disse il Re. «Voi terrete su la posa. Buffamente, certo, è cosa seria. Ma seriamente, non è buffo?»
«Che cosa?» chiese Wayne, con gli occhi di un neonato.
«Diavolo, non recitate più. Tutta questa faccenda… la Carta delle Città. Non è immensa?»
«Immenso non è parola indegna per quel glorioso disegno.»
«Oh, alla malora… ma, certo, capisco. Volete che liberi la sala da queste scrofe ragionevoli. Volete i due umoristi da soli insieme. Lasciateci, signori.»
Buck lanciò a Barker un’occhiata acida, e a un tetro segnale l’intero corteo azzurro e verde, rosso, oro e porpora defluì fuori dalla sala, lasciandone soltanto due nel grande salone: il Re seduto al suo posto sul predellino, e la figura vestita di rosso ancora inginocchiata sul pavimento davanti alla sua spada caduta.
Il Re balzò giù per i gradini e diede una pacca sulla schiena al Prevosto Wayne.
«Prima che le stelle fossero fatte,» gridò, «noi fummo fatti l’uno per l’altro. È troppo bello. Pensate alla valorosa indipendenza di Pump Street. Ecco la cosa vera. È la deificazione del ridicolo.»
La figura inginocchiata balzò in piedi con una fiera vacillante scossa.
«Ridicolo!» gridò, col volto infuocato.
«Oh, suvvia, suvvia,» disse il Re, spazientito. «Non c’è bisogno di mantenerla con me. Gli àuguri devono pur strizzare l’occhio ogni tanto per pura stanchezza delle palpebre. Godiamoci questo per mezz’ora, non da attori, ma da critici drammatici. Non è uno scherzo?»
Adam Wayne abbassò lo sguardo come un ragazzo, e rispose con voce trattenuta:
«Non capisco Vostra Maestà. Non posso credere che, mentre io combatto per la vostra carta regale, Vostra Maestà mi abbandoni per questi cani della caccia all’oro.»
«Oh, che tu sia… Ma cos’è questo? Che diavolo è questo?»
Il Re scrutò il volto del giovane Prevosto, e nella penombra della sala cominciò a vedere che era del tutto bianco, e il labbro gli tremava.
«Che cosa mai c’è?» esclamò Auberon, afferrandogli il polso.
Wayne rovesciò all’indietro il volto, e le lacrime vi splendevano sopra.
«Sono solo un ragazzo,» disse, «ma è vero. Dipingerei il Leone Rosso sul mio scudo, se avessi soltanto il mio sangue.»
Re Auberon lasciò cadere la mano e rimase immobile, folgorato.
«Mio Dio del Cielo!» disse; «è possibile che ci sia, entro i quattro mari di Britannia, un uomo che prenda Notting Hill sul serio?»
«E mio Dio del Cielo!» disse Wayne appassionatamente; «è possibile che ci sia, entro i quattro mari di Britannia, un uomo che non lo prenda sul serio?»
Il Re non disse nulla, ma risalì semplicemente i gradini del predellino come un uomo stordito. Ricadde di nuovo sulla sedia e scalciò coi talloni.
«Se questo genere di cose deve continuare,» disse debolmente, «comincerò a dubitare della superiorità dell’arte sulla vita. In nome del Cielo, non giocate con me. Volete davvero dire che siete… Dio mi aiuti!… un patriota di Notting Hill… che siete…»
Wayne fece un gesto violento, e il Re lo placò freneticamente.
«Va bene… va bene… vedo che lo siete; ma lasciatemelo assimilare. Vi proponete davvero di combattere questi moderni miglijoratori con le loro commissioni e ispettori e agrimensori e tutto il resto…»
«Sono così terribili?» chiese Wayne, sdegnoso.
Il Re continuava a fissarlo come se fosse una curiosità umana.
«E suppongo,» disse, «che pensiate che i dentisti e i piccoli bottegai e le zitelle che abitano Notting Hill accorreranno con inni di guerra al vostro vessillo?»
«Se hanno sangue, lo faranno,» disse il Prevosto.
«E suppongo,» disse il Re, con la testa riadagiata fra i cuscini, «che non vi sia mai passato per la mente che… la sua voce parve smarrirsi lussureggiando… mai passato per la mente che qualcuno abbia mai pensato che l’idea di un idealismo di Notting Hill fosse… ehm… lievemente… lievemente ridicola.»
«Certo che lo pensano,» disse Wayne. «Che significato aveva lo schernire i profeti?»
«Dove?» chiese il Re, sporgendosi in avanti. «Dove, in nome del Cielo, avete tirato fuori questa idea miracolosamente inetta?»
«Voi siete stato il mio precettore, Sire,» disse il Prevosto, «in tutto ciò che è alto e onorevole.»
«Eh?» disse il Re.
«Fu Vostra Maestà a ridestare per primo il mio fioco patriottismo in fiamma. Dieci anni fa, quando ero ragazzo (ho solo diciannove anni), giocavo sul pendio di Pump Street, con una spada di legno e un elmo di carta, sognando grandi guerre. In una collera di trance vibrai un colpo con la mia spada e restai impietrito, poiché vidi di aver colpito voi, Sire, mio Re, mentre vagavate in una nobile segretezza, vegliando sul bene del vostro popolo. Ma non avevo motivo di temere. Allora mi fu insegnato a comprendere la regalità. Voi non vi ritraeste né vi accigliaste. Non chiamaste guardie. Non invocaste castighi. Ma con parole auguste e ardenti, che sono scritte nella mia anima, per non essere mai cancellate, mi diceste di rivolgere sempre la mia spada contro i nemici della mia inviolata città. Come un sacerdote che addita l’altare, additaste la collina di Notting. “Fintanto,” diceste, “che sarai pronto a morire per la sacra montagna, anche se fosse cinta da tutte le armate di Bayswater.” Non ho dimenticato le parole, e ho ora ragione di ricordarle, poiché l’ora è giunta, e con essa la corona della vostra profezia. La sacra collina è cinta dalle armate di Bayswater, e io sono pronto a morire.»
The King was lying back in his chair, a kind of wreck.
“O Lord, Lord, Lord,” he murmured, “what a life! what a life! All my work! I seem to have done it all. So you’re the red-haired boy that hit me in the waistcoat. What have I done? God, what have I done? I thought I would have a joke, and I have created a passion. I tried, to compose a burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through into an epic. What is to be done with such a world? In the Lord’s name, wasn’t the joke broad and bold enough? I abandoned my subtle humour to amuse you, and I seem to have brought tears to your eyes. What’s to be done with people when you write a pantomime for them…call the sausages classic festoons, and the policeman cut in two a tragedy of public duty? But why am I talking? Why am I asking questions of a nice young gentleman who is totally mad? What is the good of it? What is the good of anything? O Lord, O Lord!”
Suddenly he pulled himself upright.
“Don’t you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?”
“Absurd?” asked Wayne, blankly. “Why should I?”
The King stared back equally blankly.
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
“Notting Hill,” said the Provost, simply, “is a rise or high ground of the common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in which they are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I think it absurd?”
The King smiled.
“Because, my Leonidas…” he began, then suddenly, he knew not how, found his mind was a total blank. After all, why was it absurd? Why was it absurd? He felt as if the floor of his mind had given way. He felt as all men feel when their first principles are hit hard with a question. Barker always felt so when the King said, “Why trouble about politics?”
The King’s thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not collect them.
“It is generally felt to be a little funny,” he said, vaguely.
“I suppose,” said Adam, turning on him with a fierce suddenness, “I suppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious affair?”
“Well, I…” began Auberon, “I admit I have generally thought it had its graver side.”
“Then you are wrong,” said Wayne, with incredible violence. “Crucifixion is comic. It is exquisitely diverting. It was an absurd and obscene kind of impaling reserved for people who were made to be laughed at…for slaves and provincials…for dentists and small tradesmen, as you would say. I have seen the grotesque gallows-shape, which the little Roman gutter-boys scribbled on walls as a vulgar joke, blazing on the pinnacles of the temples of the world. And shall I turn back?”
The King made no answer.
Adam went on, his voice ringing in the roof.
“This laughter with which men tyrannize is not the great power you think it. Peter was crucified, and crucified head downwards. What could be funnier than the idea of a respectable old Apostle upside down? What could be more in the style of your modern humour? But what was the good of it? Upside down or right side up, Peter was Peter to mankind. Upside down he still hangs over Europe, and millions move and breathe only in the life of his church.”
King Auberon got up absently.
“There is something in what you say,” he said. “You seem to have been thinking, young man.”
“Only feeling, sire,” answered the Provost. “I was born, like other men, in a spot of the earth which I loved because I had played boys’ games there, and fallen in love, and talked with my friends through nights that were nights of the gods. And I feel the riddle. These little gardens where we told our loves. These streets where we brought out our dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they be absurd? Why should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box is poetic when for a year I could not see a red pillar-box against the yellow evening in a certain street without being wracked with something of which God keeps the secret, but which is stronger than sorrow or joy? Why should any one be able to raise a laugh by saying ‘the Cause of Notting Hill’?…Notting Hill where thousands of immortal spirits blaze with alternate hope and fear.”
Auberon was flicking dust off his sleeve with quite a new seriousness on his face, distinct from the owlish solemnity which was the pose of his humour.
“It is very difficult,” he said at last. “It is a damned difficult thing. I see what you mean…I agree with you even up to a point…or I should like to agree with you, if I were young enough to be a prophet and poet. I feel a truth in everything you say until you come to the words ’ Notting Hill.’ And then I regret to say that the old Adam awakes roaring with laughter and makes short work of the new Adam, whose name is Wayne.”
For the first time Provost Wayne Was silent, and stood gazing dreamily at the floor. Evening was closing in, and the room had grown darker.
“I know,” he said, in a strange, almost sleepy voice, “there is truth in what you say, too. It is hard not to laugh at the common names…I only say we should not. I have thought of a remedy; but such thoughts are rather terrible.”
“What thoughts?” asked Auberon.
The Provost of Notting Hill seemed to have fallen into a kind of trance; in his eyes was an elvish light.
“I know of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or two may rightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of great fear, stronger than those who use it…often frightful, often wicked to use. But whatever is touched with it is never again wholly common. Whatever is touched with it takes a magic from outside the world. If I touch, with this fairy wand, the railways and the roads of Notting Hill, men will love them, and be afraid of them for ever.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” asked the King.
Il Re giaceva riverso sulla sedia, una sorta di relitto.
«O Signore, Signore, Signore,» mormorò, «che vita! che vita! Tutta opera mia! Pare che sia stato tutto io. Così sei tu il ragazzo dai capelli rossi che mi colpì al panciotto. Che cosa ho fatto? Dio, che cosa ho fatto? Credevo di fare uno scherzo, e ho creato una passione. Cercavo di comporre un burlesque, e pare che si stia trasformando, a metà strada, in un Epos. Che farne di un mondo simile? In nome del Signore, non era ampio e ardito abbastanza, lo scherzo? Ho abbandonato il mio sottile umorismo per divertirti, e pare che ti abbia strappato lacrime dagli occhi. Che farne della gente, quando scrivi una pantomima per essa… chiami le salsicce festoni classici, e il poliziotto tagliato in due una tragedia del pubblico dovere? Ma perché parlo? Perché faccio domande a un simpatico giovane gentiluomo del tutto pazzo? A che serve? A che serve qualsiasi cosa? O Signore, o Signore!»
D’improvviso si tirò su diritto.
«Non trovate davvero la sacra Notting Hill per nulla assurda?»
«Assurda?» chiese Wayne, sbigottito. «Perché mai dovrei?»
Il Re lo fissò a sua volta ugualmente sbigottito.
«Chiedo scusa?» disse.
«Notting Hill,» disse il Prevosto, semplicemente, «è un’altura o un terreno elevato della terra comune, sul quale gli uomini hanno costruito case per abitarvi, in cui nascono, si innamorano, amano, pregano, si sposano e muoiono. Perché mai dovrei trovarla assurda?»
Il Re sorrise.
«Perché, mio Leonida…» cominciò, poi d’improvviso, non sapeva come, si accorse che la sua mente era del tutto vuota. Dopotutto, perché era assurda? Perché era assurda? Si sentì come se il pavimento della sua mente avesse ceduto. Si sentì come si sentono tutti gli uomini quando i loro primi principî vengono colpiti duramente da una domanda. Barker si sentiva sempre così quando il Re diceva: «Perché darsi pena della politica?»
I pensieri del Re erano in una specie di rotta; non riusciva a raccoglierli.
«In genere lo si sente un po’ buffo,» disse, vagamente.
«Suppongo,» disse Adam, voltandosi verso di lui con una fiera repentinità, «suppongo che voi immaginiate che la crocifissione fosse una cosa seria?»
«Beh, io…» cominciò Auberon, «ammetto di aver in genere pensato che avesse il suo lato più grave.»
«Allora vi sbagliate,» disse Wayne, con incredibile violenza. «La crocifissione è comica. È squisitamente spassosa. Era una sorta di impalamento assurdo e osceno riservato a gente che era fatta per essere derisa… a schiavi e provinciali… a dentisti e piccoli bottegai, come direste voi. Ho visto la grottesca forma del patibolo, che i piccoli monelli di strada romani scarabocchiavano sui muri come volgare scherzo, fiammeggiare sui pinnacoli dei templi del mondo. E io dovrei tornare indietro?»
Il Re non rispose.
Adam proseguì, la voce che risuonava fino al soffitto.
«Questa risata con cui gli uomini tiranneggiano non è il grande potere che voi credete. Pietro fu crocifisso, e crocifisso a testa in giù. Che cosa poteva esservi di più buffo dell’idea di un rispettabile vecchio Apostolo a testa in giù? Che cosa poteva esservi di più nello stile del vostro moderno umorismo? Ma a che servì? A testa in giù o dritto, Pietro fu Pietro per l’umanità. A testa in giù, egli pende ancora sull’Europa, e milioni si muovono e respirano soltanto nella vita della sua chiesa.»
Re Auberon si alzò distrattamente.
«C’è qualcosa in ciò che dite,» disse. «Pare che abbiate riflettuto, giovanotto.»
«Ho solo sentito, sire,» rispose il Prevosto. «Sono nato, come gli altri uomini, in un angolo della terra che amavo perché vi avevo giocato ai giochi dei ragazzi, e mi ero innamorato, e avevo parlato con i miei amici per notti che erano notti degli dèi. E sento l’enigma. Questi piccoli giardini dove ci confidammo i nostri amori. Queste strade dove portammo fuori i nostri morti. Perché dovrebbero essere banali? Perché dovrebbero essere assurdi? Perché dovrebbe essere grottesco dire che una buca delle lettere è poetica, quando per un anno non potei vedere una rossa buca delle lettere contro il giallo della sera in una certa via senza essere straziato da qualcosa di cui Dio custodisce il segreto, ma che è più forte del dolore o della gioia? Perché mai qualcuno dovrebbe poter suscitare una risata dicendo “la Causa di Notting Hill”?… Notting Hill, dove migliaia di spiriti immortali fiammeggiano alternando speranza e paura.»
Auberon si stava spazzando via la polvere dalla manica con una serietà del tutto nuova sul volto, distinta dalla solennità da gufo che era la posa del suo umorismo.
«È molto difficile,» disse infine. «È una cosa maledettamente difficile. Capisco cosa intendete… concordo con voi persino fino a un certo punto… o vorrei concordare con voi, se fossi abbastanza giovane da essere un profeta e un poeta. Sento una verità in tutto ciò che dite, finché non arrivate alle parole “Notting Hill”. E allora, mi dispiace dirlo, il vecchio Adamo si desta ruggendo di risate e fa presto giustizia del nuovo Adamo, il cui nome è Wayne.»
Per la prima volta il Prevosto Wayne tacque, e rimase a fissare sognante il pavimento. La sera calava, e la sala si era fatta più buia.
«Lo so,» disse, con una voce strana, quasi assonnata, «c’è verità anche in ciò che dite voi. È difficile non ridere dei nomi comuni… dico solo che non dovremmo. Ho pensato a un rimedio; ma tali pensieri sono piuttosto terribili.»
«Quali pensieri?» chiese Auberon.
Il Prevosto di Notting Hill pareva essere caduto in una sorta di trance; nei suoi occhi c’era una luce elfica.
«Conosco una bacchetta magica, ma è una bacchetta che solo uno o due possono usare rettamente, e solo di rado. È una bacchetta fatata di grande paura, più forte di coloro che la usano… spesso spaventosa, spesso malvagia a usarsi. Ma qualunque cosa ne sia toccata non è mai più del tutto comune. Qualunque cosa ne sia toccata prende una magia da fuori del mondo. Se io tocco, con questa bacchetta fatata, le ferrovie e le strade di Notting Hill, gli uomini le ameranno, e ne avranno paura per sempre.»
«Di che diavolo state parlando?» chiese il Re.
“It has made mean landscapes magnificent, and hovels outlast cathedrals,” went on the madman. “Why should it not make lampposts fairer than Greek lamps, and an omnibus ride like a painted ship? The touch of it is the finger of a strange perfection.”
“What is your wand?” cried the King, impatiently.
“There it is,” said Wayne; and pointed to the floor, where his sword lay flat and shining.
“The sword!” cried the King; and sprang up straight on the dais.
“Yes, yes,” cried Wayne, hoarsely. “The things touched by that are not vulgar. The things touched by that…”
King Auberon made a gesture of horror.
“You will shed blood for that!” he cried. “For a cursed point of view…”
“Oh, you kings, you kings,” cried out Adam, in a burst of scorn. “How humane you are, how tender, how considerate. You will make war for a frontier, or the imports of a foreign harbour; you will shed blood for the precise duty on lace, or the salute to an admiral. But for the things that make life itself worthy or miserable…how humane you are. I say here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never any necessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any just wars but the religious wars. There were never any humane wars but the religious wars. For these men were fighting for something that claimed, at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue of a man. A Crusader thought, at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man, king or tinker, that it could really capture. I think Buck and Barker and these rich vultures hurt the soul of every man, hurt every inch of the ground, hurt every brick of the houses, that they can really capture. Do you think I have no right to fight for Notting Hill, you whose English Government has so often fought for tomfooleries? If, as your rich friends say, there are no gods, and the skies are dark above us, what should a man fight for, but the place where he had the Eden of childhood and the short heaven of first love? If no temples and no scriptures are sacred, what is sacred if a man’s own youth is not sacred?”
The King walked a little restlessly up and down the dais.
“It is hard,” he said, biting his lips, “to assent to a view so desperate…so responsible…”
As he spoke, the door of the audience chamber fell ajar, and through the aperture came, like the sudden chatter of a bird, the high, nasal, but well-bred voice of Barker.
“I said to him quite plainly…the public interests…”
Auberon turned on Wayne with violence.
“What the devil is all this? What am I saying? What are you saying? Have you hypnotized me? Curse your uncanny blue eyes! Let me go. Give me back my sense of humour. Give it me back. Give it me back, I say!”
“I solemnly assure you,” said Wayne, uneasily, with a gesture, as if feeling all over himself, “that I haven’t got it.”
The King fell back in his chair, and went into a roar of Rabelaisian laughter.
“I don’t think you have,” he cried.
«Ha reso magnifici paesaggi meschini, e ha fatto durare tuguri più delle cattedrali,» proseguì il pazzo. «Perché non dovrebbe rendere i lampioni più belli delle lampade greche, e una corsa in omnibus simile a una Nave dipinta? Il suo tocco è il dito di una strana perfezione.»
«Qual è la vostra bacchetta?» esclamò il Re, spazientito.
«Eccola,» disse Wayne; e indicò il pavimento, dove la sua spada giaceva piatta e lucente.
«La spada!» esclamò il Re; e balzò dritto in piedi sul predellino.
«Sì, sì,» esclamò Wayne, con voce rauca. «Le cose toccate da essa non sono volgari. Le cose toccate da essa…»
Re Auberon fece un gesto d’orrore.
«Verserete sangue per questo!» esclamò. «Per un maledetto punto di vista…»
«Oh, voi re, voi re,» esclamò Adam, in uno scoppio di scherno. «Come siete umani, come teneri, come premurosi. Farete guerra per una frontiera, o per i dazi d’importazione di un porto straniero; verserete sangue per il preciso dazio sui merletti, o per il saluto a un ammiraglio. Ma per le cose che rendono la vita stessa degna o miserabile… come umani siete. Io dico qui, e so bene di che cosa parlo, che non vi furono mai guerre necessarie se non le guerre di religione. Non vi furono mai guerre giuste se non le guerre di religione. Non vi furono mai guerre umane se non le guerre di religione. Poiché quegli uomini combattevano per qualcosa che pretendeva, almeno, di essere la felicità di un uomo, la virtù di un uomo. Un Crociato pensava, almeno, che l’Islam ferisse l’anima di ogni uomo, re o calderaio, che riuscisse davvero a catturare. Io penso che Buck e Barker e questi ricchi avvoltoi feriscano l’anima di ogni uomo, feriscano ogni pollice di terreno, feriscano ogni mattone delle case, che riescano davvero a catturare. Credete che io non abbia il diritto di combattere per Notting Hill, voi il cui Governo inglese ha così spesso combattuto per sciocchezze? Se, come dicono i vostri ricchi amici, non ci sono dèi, e i cieli sono bui sopra di noi, per che cosa dovrebbe combattere un uomo, se non per il luogo dove ebbe l’Eden dell’infanzia e il breve cielo del primo amore? Se nessun tempio e nessuna scrittura sono sacri, che cosa è sacro se la stessa giovinezza di un uomo non è sacra?»
Il Re camminava un po’ inquieto avanti e indietro sul predellino.
«È duro,» disse, mordendosi le labbra, «assentire a una veduta così disperata… così carica di responsabilità…»
Mentre parlava, la porta della sala delle udienze si socchiuse, e attraverso lo spiraglio giunse, come l’improvviso cinguettio di un uccello, la voce alta, nasale ma ben educata di Barker.
«Gli ho detto molto chiaramente… l’interesse pubblico…»
Auberon si voltò verso Wayne con violenza.
«Che diavolo è tutto questo? Che cosa sto dicendo? Che cosa state dicendo? Mi avete ipnotizzato? Maledetti i vostri inquietanti occhi azzurri! Lasciatemi andare. Ridatemi il mio senso dell’umorismo. Ridatemelo. Ridatemelo, vi dico!»
«Vi assicuro solennemente,» disse Wayne, a disagio, con un gesto, come tastandosi dappertutto, «che non ce l’ho io.»
Il Re ricadde sulla sedia, e proruppe in uno scroscio di risa rabelaisiane.
«Non credo proprio che ce l’abbiate,» esclamò.
BOOK III CHAPTER I
THE MENTAL CONDITION OF ADAM WAYNE
A LITTLE while after the King’s accession a small book of poems appeared, called “Hymns of the Hill.” They were not good poems, nor was the book successful, but it attracted a certain amount of attention from one particular school of critics. The King himself, who was a member of the school, reviewed it in his capacity of literary critic to “Straight from the Stables,” a sporting journal. They were known as the Hammock School, because it had been calculated malignantly by an enemy that no less than thirteen of their delicate criticisms had begun with the words, “I read this book in a hammock; half asleep in the sleepy sunlight, I…”; after that there were important differences. Under these conditions they liked everything, but especially everything silly. “Next to authentic goodness in a book,” they said “next to authentic goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a rich badness.” Thus it happened that their praise (as indicating the presence of a rich badness) was not universally sought after, and authors became a little disquieted when they found the eye of the Hammock School fixed upon them with peculiar favour.
The peculiarity of “Hymns of the Hill” was the celebration of the poetry of London as distinct from the poetry of the country. This sentiment or affectation was, of course, not uncommon in the twentieth century, nor was it, although sometimes exaggerated, and sometimes artificial, by any means without a great truth at its root, for there is one respect in which a town must be more poetical than the country, since it is closer to the spirit of man; for London, if it be not one of the masterpieces of man, is at least one of his sins. A street is really more poetical than a meadow, because a street has a secret. A street is going somewhere, and a meadow nowhere. But, in the case of the book called “Hymns on the Hill,” there was another peculiarity, which the King pointed out with great acumen in his review. He was naturally interested in the matter, for he had himself published a volume of lyrics about London under his pseudonym of “Daisy Daydream.”
This difference, as the King pointed out, consisted in the fact that, while mere artificers like “Daisy Daydream” (on whose elaborate style the King, over his signature of “Thunderbolt,” was perhaps somewhat too severe) thought to praise London by comparing it to the country…using nature, that is, as a background from which all poetical images had to be drawn…the more robust author of “Hymns of the Hill” praised the country, or nature, by comparing it to the town, and used the town itself as a background. “Take,” said the critic, “the typically feminine lines, ’ To the Inventor of the Hansom Cab’”
’ Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, Where twain may dwell.’
“Surely,” wrote the King, “no one but a woman could have written those lines. A woman has always a weakness for nature; with her, art is only beautiful as an echo or shadow of it. She is praising the hansom cab by theme and theory, but her soul is still a child by the sea, picking up shells. She can never be utterly of the town, as a man can; indeed, do we not speak (with sacred propriety) of ‘a man about town’? Who ever spoke of a woman about town? However much, physically, ‘about town’ a woman may be, she still models herself on nature; she tries to carry nature with her; she bids grasses to grow on her head, and furry beasts to bite her about the throat. In the heart of a dim city, she models her hat on a flaring cottage garden of flowers. We, with our nobler civic sentiment, model ours on a chimney pot; the ensign of civilization. And rather than be without birds, she will commit massacre, that she may turn her head into a tree, with dead birds to sing on it.”
This kind of thing went on for several pages, and then the critic remembered his subject, and returned to it.
“Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, Where twain may dwell.”
“The peculiarity of these fine though feminine lines,” continued “Thunderbolt,” “is, as we have said, that they praise the hansom cab by comparing it to the shell, to a natural thing. Now, hear the author of ’ Hymns of the Hill,’ and how he deals with the same subject. In his fine nocturne, entitled ’ The Last Omnibus,’ he relieves the rich and poignant melancholy of the theme by a sudden sense of rushing at the end”
’ The wind round the old street corner Swung sudden and quick as a cab.’
“Here the distinction is obvious. ’ Daisy Daydream’ thinks it a great compliment to a hansom cab to be compared to one of the spiral chambers of the sea. And the author of ’ Hymns on the Hill’ thinks it a great compliment to the immortal whirlwind to be compared to a hackney coach. He surely is the real admirer of London. We have no space to speak of all his perfect applications of the idea; of the poem in which, for instance, a lady’s eyes are compared, not to stars, but to two perfect street-lamps guiding the wanderer. We have no space to speak of the fine lyric, recalling the Elizabethan spirit, in which the poet, instead of saying that the rose and the lily contend in her complexion, says, with a purer modernism, that the red omnibus of Hammersmith and the white omnibus of Fulham fight there for the mastery. How perfect the image of two contending omnibuses!”
Here, somewhat abruptly, the review concluded, probably because the King had to send off his copy at that moment, as he was in some want of money. But the King was a very good critic, whatever he may have been as King, and he had, to a considerable extent, hit the right nail on the head. “Hymns on the Hill” was not at all like the poems originally published in praise of the poetry of London. And the reason was that it was really written by a man who had seen nothing else but London, and who regarded it, therefore, as the universe. It was written by a raw, red-headed lad of seventeen, named Adam Wayne, who had been born in Notting Hill. An accident in his seventh year prevented his being taken away to the seaside, and thus his whole life had been passed in his own Pump Street, and in its neighbourhood. And the consequence was, that he saw the street-lamps as things quite as eternal as the stars; the two fires were mingled. He saw the houses as things enduring, like the mountains, and so he wrote about them as one would write about mountains. Nature puts on a disguise when she speaks to every man; to this man she put on the disguise of Notting Hill. Nature would mean to a poet born in the Cumberland hills, a stormy skyline and sudden rocks. Nature would mean to a poet born in the Essex flats, a waste of splendid waters and splendid sunsets. So nature meant to this man Wayne a line of violet roofs and lemon lamps, the chiaroscuro of the town. He did not think it clever or funny to praise the shadows and colours of the town; he had seen no other shadows or colours, and so he praised them…because they were shadows and colours. He saw all this because he was a poet, though in practice a bad poet. It is too often forgotten that just as a bad man is nevertheless a man, so a bad poet is nevertheless a poet.
LIBRO III CAPITOLO I
LA CONDIZIONE MENTALE DI ADAM WAYNE
POCO dopo l’ascesa al trono del Re apparve un piccolo libro di poesie, intitolato «Inni della Collina». Non erano buone poesie, né il libro ebbe successo, ma attirò una certa dose di attenzione da parte di una particolare scuola di critici. Lo stesso Re, che era membro della scuola, lo recensì nella sua veste di critico letterario di «Straight from the Stables», una rivista sportiva. Erano noti come la Scuola dell’Amaca, perché era stato calcolato malignamente da un nemico che non meno di tredici delle loro delicate recensioni erano cominciate con le parole: «Ho letto questo libro in un’amaca; mezzo addormentato nella luce sonnolenta del sole, io…»; dopo di che venivano differenze importanti. In tali condizioni apprezzavano ogni cosa, ma specialmente ogni cosa sciocca. «Dopo l’autentica bontà in un libro,» dicevano «dopo l’autentica bontà in un libro (e quella, ahimè!, non la troviamo mai) noi desideriamo una ricca cattiveria.» Così accadde che la loro lode (in quanto indice della presenza di una ricca cattiveria) non fosse universalmente ambita, e gli autori si turbavano un poco quando scoprivano l’occhio della Scuola dell’Amaca fisso su di loro con singolare favore.
La peculiarità di «Inni della Collina» era la celebrazione della poesia di Londra in quanto distinta dalla poesia della campagna. Questo sentimento, o affettazione, non era certo raro nel ventesimo secolo, né era, per quanto talvolta esagerato, e talvolta artificiale, in alcun modo privo di una grande verità alla radice, poiché vi è un aspetto per cui una città dev’essere più poetica della campagna, essendo più vicina allo spirito dell’uomo; giacché Londra, se non è uno dei capolavori dell’uomo, è almeno uno dei suoi peccati. Una strada è davvero più poetica di un prato, perché una strada ha un segreto. Una strada va da qualche parte, e un prato in nessun luogo. Ma, nel caso del libro intitolato «Inni sulla Collina», vi era un’altra peculiarità, che il Re mise in luce con grande acume nella sua recensione. Egli era naturalmente interessato alla questione, poiché aveva egli stesso pubblicato un volume di liriche su Londra sotto il suo pseudonimo di «Daisy Daydream».
Questa differenza, come il Re fece notare, consisteva nel fatto che, mentre semplici artefici come «Daisy Daydream» (sul cui elaborato stile il Re, sotto la firma di «Thunderbolt», era forse un po’ troppo severo) pensavano di lodare Londra paragonandola alla campagna… usando cioè la natura come sfondo da cui trarre tutte le immagini poetiche… il più robusto autore di «Inni della Collina» lodava la campagna, ovvero la natura, paragonandola alla città, e usava la città stessa come sfondo. «Prendete,» disse il critico, «i versi tipicamente femminili, “All’Inventore della Carrozzella”»
«Poeta, la cui astuzia scolpì questa amorosa conchiglia, ove due possano dimorare.»
“Certo,” scrisse il Re, “nessuno se non una donna avrebbe potuto scrivere quei versi. Una donna ha sempre un debole per la natura; per lei, l’arte è bella solo come eco o ombra di essa. Ella loda la carrozzella per tema e teoria, ma la sua anima è ancora una bambina in riva al mare, che raccoglie conchiglie. Non potrà mai essere del tutto cittadina, come può esserlo un uomo; e invero, non diciamo forse (con sacra proprietà) di ‘un uomo di mondo’? Chi ha mai parlato di una donna di mondo? Per quanto, fisicamente, ‘di mondo’ una donna possa essere, ella si modella pur sempre sulla natura; cerca di portare la natura con sé; ordina alle erbe di crescerle sul capo, e alle bestie pelose di morderla intorno alla gola. Nel cuore di una fosca città, modella il suo cappello su un fiammeggiante giardino campestre di fiori. Noi, col nostro più nobile sentimento civico, modelliamo il nostro su un comignolo; l’insegna della civiltà. E piuttosto che restare senza uccelli, commetterà un massacro, pur di trasformare il proprio capo in un albero, con uccelli morti che vi cantino.”
Questa sorta di cose continuò per parecchie pagine, e poi il critico si ricordò del suo soggetto, e vi tornò.
“Poeta, la cui astuzia scolpì questa amorosa conchiglia, ove due possano dimorare.”
“La peculiarità di questi versi belli benché femminili,” proseguì “Thunderbolt”, “è, come abbiamo detto, che essi lodano la carrozzella paragonandola alla conchiglia, a una cosa naturale. Ora, udite l’autore di ’ Inni della Collina,’ e come tratta il medesimo soggetto. Nel suo bel notturno, intitolato ’ L’Ultimo Omnibus,’ egli allevia la ricca e pungente malinconia del tema con un improvviso senso di corsa alla fine”
’ Il vento intorno al vecchio angolo della strada sterzò improvviso e rapido come una carrozza.’
“Qui la distinzione è evidente. ’ Daisy Daydream’ ritiene un grande complimento per una carrozzella l’essere paragonata a una delle spiraliche camere del mare. E l’autore di ’ Inni sulla Collina’ ritiene un grande complimento per l’immortale turbine l’essere paragonato a una vettura di piazza. Egli è di certo il vero ammiratore di Londra. Non abbiamo spazio per parlare di tutte le sue perfette applicazioni dell’idea; della poesia in cui, per esempio, gli occhi di una dama sono paragonati non alle stelle, ma a due perfetti lampioni che guidano il viandante. Non abbiamo spazio per parlare della bella lirica, che richiama lo spirito elisabettiano, in cui il poeta, invece di dire che la rosa e il giglio si contendono il suo incarnato, dice, con un modernismo più puro, che l’omnibus rosso di Hammersmith e l’omnibus bianco di Fulham vi combattono per il dominio. Quanto è perfetta l’immagine di due omnibus in lotta!”
Qui, in modo alquanto brusco, la recensione si concluse, probabilmente perché il Re doveva spedire la sua copia in quel momento, trovandosi in qualche ristrettezza di denaro. Ma il Re era un ottimo critico, qualunque cosa fosse stato come Re, e aveva, in misura considerevole, colto nel segno. «Inni sulla Collina» non somigliava affatto alle poesie originariamente pubblicate in lode della poesia di Londra. E la ragione era che era davvero stato scritto da un uomo che non aveva visto null’altro che Londra, e che perciò la considerava l’universo. Era stato scritto da un ragazzo rozzo, dai capelli rossi, di diciassette anni, di nome Adam Wayne, nato a Notting Hill. Un incidente nel suo settimo anno gli impedì di essere portato al mare, e così la sua intera vita era trascorsa nella sua Pump Street, e nei suoi dintorni. E la conseguenza fu che egli vedeva i lampioni come cose eterne quanto le stelle; i due fuochi si mescolavano. Vedeva le case come cose durature, simili alle montagne, e così scriveva di esse come si scriverebbe delle montagne. La Natura indossa un travestimento quando parla a ogni uomo; a quest’uomo indossò il travestimento di Notting Hill. La Natura significherebbe, per un poeta nato tra le colline del Cumberland, un cielo tempestoso e rocce improvvise. La Natura significherebbe, per un poeta nato nelle piane dell’Essex, una distesa di splendide acque e splendidi tramonti. Così la natura significò per quest’uomo Wayne una fila di tetti violacei e di lampade color limone, il chiaroscuro della città. Non riteneva arguto o buffo lodare le ombre e i colori della città; non aveva visto altre ombre o altri colori, e perciò li lodava… perché erano ombre e colori. Vedeva tutto ciò perché era un poeta, benché in pratica un cattivo poeta. Troppo spesso si dimentica che, proprio come un uomo cattivo è nondimeno un uomo, così un cattivo poeta è nondimeno un poeta.
Mr. Wayne’s little volume of verse was a complete failure; and he submitted to the decision of fate with a quite rational humility, went back to his work, which was that of a draper’s assistant, and wrote no more. He still retained his feeling about the town of Notting Hill, because he could not possibly have any other feeling, because it was the back and base of his brain. But he does not seem to have made any particular attempt to express it or insist upon it.
He was a genuine natural mystic, one of those who live on the border of fairyland. But he was perhaps the first to realize how often the boundary of fairyland runs through a crowded city. Twenty feet from him (for he was very short-sighted) the red and white and yellow suns of the gas-lights thronged and melted into each other like an orchard of fiery trees, the beginning of the woods of elf-land.
But, oddly enough, it was because he was a small poet that he came to his strange and isolated triumph. It was because he was a failure in literature that he became a portent in English history. He was one of those to whom nature has given the desire without the power of artistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a treasure of new and sensational song. But he was born under the lucky star of a single coincidence. He happened to be at the head of his dingy municipality at the time of the King’s jest, at the time when all municipalities were suddenly commanded to break out into banners and flowers. Out of the long procession of the silent poets who have been passing since the beginning of the world, this one man found himself in the midst of an heraldic vision, in which he could act and speak and live lyrically. While the author and the victims alike treated the whole matter as a silly public charade, this one man, by taking it seriously, sprang suddenly into a throne of artistic omnipotence. Armour, music, standards, watch-fires, the noise of drums, all the theatrical properties were thrown before him. This one poor rhymster, having burnt his own rhymes, began to live that life of open air and acted poetry of which all the poets of the earth have dreamed in vain; the life for which the Iliad is only a cheap substitute.
Upwards from his abstracted childhood, Adam Wayne had grown strongly and silently in a certain quality or capacity which is in modern cities almost entirely artificial, but which can be natural, and was primarily almost brutally natural in him, the quality or capacity of patriotism. It exists, like other virtues and vices, in a certain undiluted reality. It is not confused with all kinds of other things. A child speaking of his country or his village may make every mistake in Mandeville or tell every lie in Munchausen, but in his statement there will be no psychological lies any more than there can be in a good song. Adam Wayne, as a boy, had for his dull streets in Notting Hill the ultimate and ancient sentiment that went out to Athens or Jerusalem. He knew the secret of the passion, those secrets which make real old national songs sound so strange to our civilization. He knew that real patriotism tends to sing about sorrows and forlorn hopes much more than about victory. He knew that in proper names themselves is half the poetry of all national poems. Above all, he knew the supreme psychological fact about patriotism, as certain in connection with it as that a fine shame comes to all lovers, the fact that the patriot never under any circumstances boasts of the largeness of his country, but always, and of necessity, boasts of the smallness of it.
All this he knew, not because he was a philosopher or a genius, but because he was a child. Any one who cares to walk up a side slum like Pump Street, can see a little Adam claiming to be king of a paving-stone. And he will always be proudest if the stone is almost too narrow for him to keep his feet inside it.
It was while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, marking out some strip of street or fortress of steps as the limit of his haughty claim, that the King had met him, and, with a few words flung in mockery, ratified for ever the strange boundaries of his soul. Thenceforward the fanciful idea of the defence of Notting Hill in war became to him a thing as solid as eating or drinking or lighting a pipe. He disposed his meals for it, altered his plans for it, lay awake in the night and went over it again. Two or three shops were to him an arsenal; an area was to him a moat; corners of balconies and turns of stone steps were points for the location of a culverin or an archer. It is almost impossible to convey to any ordinary imagination the degree to which he had transmitted the leaden London landscape to a romantic gold. The process began almost in babyhood, and became habitual like a literal madness. It was felt most keenly at night, when London is really herself, when her lights shine in the dark like the eyes of innumerable cats, and the outline of the dark houses has the bold simplicity of blue hills. But for him the night revealed instead of concealing, and he read all the blank hours of morning and afternoon, by a contradictory phrase, in the light of that darkness. To this man, at any rate, the inconceivable had happened. The artificial city had become to him nature, and he felt the curb-stones and gas-lamps as things as ancient as the sky.
One instance may suffice. Walking along Pump Street with a friend, he said, as he gazed dreamily at the iron fence of a little front garden, “How those railings stir one’s blood.”
His friend, who was also a great intellectual admirer, looked at them painfully, but without any particular emotion. He was so troubled about it that he went back quite a large number of times on quiet evenings and stared at the railings, waiting for something to happen to his blood, but without success. At last he took refuge in asking Wayne himself. He discovered that the ecstacy lay in the one point he had never noticed about the railings even after his six visits, the fact that they were like the great majority of others in London, shaped at the top after the manner of a spear. As a child, Wayne had half unconsciously compared them with the spears in pictures of Lancelot and St. George, and had grown up under the shadow of the graphic association. Now, whenever he looked at them, they were simply the serried weapons that made a hedge of steel round the sacred homes of Notting Hill. He could not have cleansed his mind of that meaning even if he tried. It was not a fanciful comparison, or anything like it. It would not have been true to say that the familiar railings reminded him of spears; it would have been far truer to say that the familiar spears occasionally reminded him of railings.
Il piccolo volume di versi del signor Wayne fu un completo fallimento; ed egli si sottomise al verdetto del destino con un’umiltà del tutto razionale, tornò al suo lavoro, che era quello di commesso di un merciaio, e non scrisse più. Conservò tuttavia il suo sentimento verso la città di Notting Hill, perché non poteva assolutamente avere alcun altro sentimento, perché essa era il fondo e la base del suo cervello. Ma non pare che abbia fatto alcun particolare tentativo di esprimerlo o di insistervi.
Era un genuino mistico naturale, uno di quelli che vivono al confine del paese delle fate. Ma fu forse il primo a comprendere quanto spesso il confine del paese delle fate attraversi una città affollata. A sei metri da lui (poiché era assai miope) i soli rossi e bianchi e gialli dei becchi a gas si affollavano e si fondevano l’uno nell’altro come un frutteto di alberi di fuoco, l’inizio dei boschi del paese degli elfi.
Ma, per quanto strano, fu proprio perché era un piccolo poeta che pervenne al suo strano e isolato trionfo. Fu proprio perché era un fallito nella letteratura che divenne un portento nella storia inglese. Era uno di quelli a cui la natura ha dato il desiderio senza il potere dell’espressione artistica. Era stato un poeta muto fin dalla culla. Avrebbe potuto restarlo fino alla tomba, e portare inespresso nelle tenebre un tesoro di nuovo e sensazionale canto. Ma nacque sotto la fortunata stella di una singola coincidenza. Si trovò a essere a capo del suo squallido municipio al tempo dello scherzo del Re, al tempo in cui a tutti i municipi fu improvvisamente ordinato di prorompere in stendardi e fiori. Dalla lunga processione dei poeti silenziosi che sfilano dal principio del mondo, quest’unico uomo si trovò nel mezzo di una visione araldica, in cui poteva agire e parlare e vivere liricamente. Mentre l’autore e le vittime trattavano allo stesso modo l’intera faccenda come una sciocca pantomima pubblica, quest’unico uomo, prendendola sul serio, balzò d’improvviso su un trono di onnipotenza artistica. Armature, musica, insegne, fuochi di veglia, il rullo dei tamburi, tutti gli oggetti di scena teatrali furono gettati dinanzi a lui. Questo povero rimatore, avendo bruciato le proprie rime, cominciò a vivere quella vita all’aria aperta e quella poesia in atto che tutti i poeti della terra hanno sognato invano; la vita per cui l’Iliade non è che un misero surrogato.
Fin dalla sua astratta infanzia, Adam Wayne era cresciuto forte e silenzioso in una certa qualità o capacità che nelle città moderne è quasi interamente artificiale, ma che può essere naturale, ed era in lui primariamente, quasi brutalmente naturale: la qualità o capacità del patriottismo. Essa esiste, come le altre virtù e i vizi, in una certa realtà non diluita. Non si confonde con ogni sorta di altre cose. Un bambino che parli del proprio paese o del proprio villaggio può commettere ogni errore che è in Mandeville o dire ogni menzogna che è in Munchausen, ma nella sua affermazione non vi saranno menzogne psicologiche più di quante possano essercene in una bella canzone. Adam Wayne, da ragazzo, nutriva per le sue squallide strade di Notting Hill il sentimento ultimo e antico che si rivolgeva ad Atene o a Gerusalemme. Conosceva il segreto della passione, quei segreti che rendono i veri antichi canti nazionali così strani alla nostra civiltà. Sapeva che il vero patriottismo tende a cantare le sventure e le speranze perdute assai più che la vittoria. Sapeva che nei nomi propri stessi sta metà della poesia di tutti i poemi nazionali. Soprattutto, conosceva il supremo fatto psicologico del patriottismo, altrettanto certo, in rapporto ad esso, quanto il fatto che una bella vergogna coglie tutti gli innamorati: il fatto che il patriota non si vanta mai, in nessuna circostanza, della grandezza del proprio paese, ma sempre, e per necessità, si vanta della sua piccolezza.
Tutto questo egli sapeva, non perché fosse un filosofo o un genio, ma perché era un bambino. Chiunque abbia voglia di risalire un vicolo squallido come Pump Street, può vedere un piccolo Adam che pretende di essere re di un lastricato. E sarà sempre più orgoglioso se la pietra è quasi troppo stretta perché egli vi tenga dentro i piedi.
Fu mentre si trovava in un sogno simile di battaglia difensiva, tracciando qualche striscia di strada o fortezza di gradini come limite della sua altera pretesa, che il Re lo aveva incontrato e, con poche parole lanciate per scherno, aveva ratificato per sempre gli strani confini della sua anima. Da allora in poi la fantasiosa idea della difesa di Notting Hill in guerra divenne per lui una cosa solida come mangiare o bere o accendere una pipa. Disponeva i suoi pasti in funzione di essa, mutava i suoi piani per essa, giaceva sveglio nella notte e la ripercorreva. Due o tre negozi erano per lui un arsenale; uno spiazzo era per lui un fossato; angoli di balconi e svolte di gradini di pietra erano punti per la collocazione di una colubrina o di un arciere. È quasi impossibile trasmettere a un’immaginazione ordinaria il grado in cui aveva trasmutato il plumbeo paesaggio di Londra in un oro romantico. Il processo cominciò quasi nella prima infanzia, e divenne abituale come una vera e propria follia. Lo si avvertiva più acutamente di notte, quando Londra è davvero se stessa, quando le sue luci brillano nel buio come gli occhi di innumerevoli gatti, e il profilo delle case scure ha l’ardita semplicità di colline azzurre. Ma per lui la notte rivelava invece di nascondere, ed egli leggeva tutte le ore vuote del mattino e del pomeriggio, per una frase contraddittoria, alla luce di quel buio. A quest’uomo, in ogni caso, era accaduto l’inconcepibile. L’artificiale città era divenuta per lui natura, ed egli sentiva i cordoli e i lampioni a gas come cose antiche quanto il cielo.
Basti un esempio. Camminando lungo Pump Street con un amico, disse, mentre fissava sognante l’inferriata di ferro di un piccolo giardino antistante: “Come fanno fremere il sangue queste ringhiere.”
Il suo amico, che era anch’egli un grande ammiratore intellettuale, le guardò con pena, ma senza alcuna particolare emozione. Ne fu tanto turbato che vi tornò un buon numero di volte in tranquille serate e fissò le ringhiere, aspettando che qualcosa accadesse al suo sangue, ma senza successo. Alla fine si rifugiò nel chiederlo a Wayne stesso. Scoprì che l’estasi risiedeva nell’unico punto che non aveva mai notato riguardo alle ringhiere, nemmeno dopo le sue sei visite: il fatto che esse erano come la grande maggioranza delle altre a Londra, foggiate in cima a forma di lancia. Da bambino, Wayne le aveva mezzo inconsciamente paragonate alle lance nelle immagini di Lancillotto e di San Giorgio, ed era cresciuto sotto l’ombra di quell’associazione figurativa. Ora, ogni volta che le guardava, erano semplicemente le armi serrate che formavano una siepe d’acciaio intorno alle sacre dimore di Notting Hill. Non avrebbe potuto ripulire la sua mente di quel significato nemmeno se ci avesse provato. Non era un paragone fantasioso, né nulla di simile. Non sarebbe stato vero dire che le familiari ringhiere gli ricordavano le lance; sarebbe stato assai più vero dire che le familiari lance gli ricordavano di tanto in tanto le ringhiere.
A couple of days after his interview with the King, Adam Wayne was pacing like a caged lion in front of five shops that occupied the upper end of the disputed street. They were a grocer’s, a chemist’s, a barber’s, an old curiosity shop, and a toy-shop that sold also newspapers. It was these five shops which his childish fastidiousness had first selected as the essentials of the Notting Hill campaign, the citadel of the city. If Notting Hill was the heart of the universe, and Pump Street was the heart of Notting Hill, this was the heart of Pump Street. The fact that they were all small and side by side realized that feeling for a formidable comfort and compactness which, as we have said, was the heart of his patriotism and of all patriotism. The grocer (who had a wine and spirit licence) was included because he could provision the garrison; the old curiosity shop because it contained enough swords, pistols, partisans, cross-bows, and blunderbusses to arm a whole irregular regiment; the toy and paper shop because Wayne thought a free press an essential centre for the soul of Pump Street; the chemist’s to cope with outbreaks of disease among the besieged; and the barber’s because it was in the middle of all the rest, and the barber’s son was an intimate friend and spiritual affinity.
It was a cloudless October evening settling down through purple into pure silver around the roofs and chimneys of the steep little street, which looked black and sharp and dramatic. In the deep shadows the gas-lit shop fronts gleamed like five fires in a row, and before them, darkly outlined like a ghost against some purgatorial furnaces, passed to and fro the tall bird-like figure and eagle nose of Adam Wayne.
He swung his stick restlessly, and seemed fitfully talking to himself.
“There are, after all, enigmas,” he said, “even to the man who has faith. There are doubts that remain even after the true philosophy is completed in every rung and rivet. And here is one of them. Is the normal human need, the normal human condition, higher or lower than those special spates of the soul which call out a doubtful and dangerous glory? those special powers of knowledge or sacrifice which are made possible only by the existence of evil? Which should come first to our affections, the enduring sanities of peace or the half-maniacal virtues of battle? Which should come first, the man great in the daily round or the man great in emergency? Which should come first, to return to the enigma before me, the grocer or the chemist? Which is more certainly the stay of the city, the swift chivalrous chemist or the benignant all-providing, grocer? In such ultimate spiritual doubts it is only possible to choose a side by the higher instincts and to abide the issue. In any case, I have made my choice. May I be pardoned if I choose wrongly, but I choose the grocer.”
“Good morning, sir,” said the grocer, who was a middle-aged man, partially bald, with harsh red whiskers and beard, and forehead lined with all the cares of the small tradesman. “What can I do for you, sir?”
Wayne removed his hat on entering the shop, with a ceremonious gesture, which, slight as it was, made the tradesman eye him with the beginnings of wonder.
“I come, sir,” he said soberly, “to appeal to your patriotism.”
“Why, sir,” said the grocer, “that sounds like the times when I was a boy and we used to have elections.”
“You will have them again,” said Wayne, firmly, “and far greater things. Listen, Mr. Mead. I know the temptations which a grocer has to a too cosmopolitan philosophy. I can imagine what it must be to sit all day as you do surrounded with wares from all the ends of the earth, from strange seas that we have never sailed and strange forests that we could not even picture. No Eastern king ever had such argosies or such cargoes coming from the sunrise and the sunset, and Solomon in all his glory was not enriched like one of you. India is at your elbow,” he cried, lifting his voice and pointing his stick at a drawer of rice, the grocer making a movement of some alarm, “China is before you, Demerara is behind you, America is above your head, and at this very moment, like some old Spanish admiral, you hold Tunis in your hands.”
Mr. Mead dropped the box of dates which he was just lifting, and then picked it up again vaguely.
Wayne went on with a heightened colour, but in a lowered voice:
“I know, I say, the temptations of so international, so universal a vision of wealth. I know that it must be your danger not to fall like many tradesmen into too dusty and mechanical a narrowness, but rather to be too broad, to be too general, too liberal. If a narrow nationalism be the danger of the pastrycook who makes his own wares under his own heavens, no less is cosmopolitanism the danger of the grocer. But I come to you in the name of that patriotism which no wanderings or enlightenments should ever wholly extinguish, and I ask you to remember Notting Hill. For, after all, in this cosmopolitan magnificence, she has played no small part. Your dates may come from the tall palms of Barbary, your sugar from the strange islands of the tropics, your tea from the secret villages of the Empire of the Dragon. That this room might be furnished, forests may have been spoiled under the Southern Cross, and leviathans speared under the Polar Star. But you yourself…surely no inconsiderable treasure…you yourself, the brain that wields these vast interests…you yourself, at least, have grown to strength and wisdom between these grey houses and under this rainy sky. This city which made you, and thus made your fortunes, is threatened with war. Come forth and tell to the ends of the earth this lesson. Oil is from the North and fruits from the South; rices are from India and spices from Ceylon; sheep are from New Zealand and men from Notting Hill.”
Un paio di giorni dopo il suo colloquio con il Re, Adam Wayne passeggiava avanti e indietro come un leone in gabbia davanti a cinque negozi che occupavano l’estremità superiore della strada contesa. Erano quelli di un droghiere, di un farmacista, di un barbiere, di un negozio di anticaglie, e di un negozio di giocattoli che vendeva anche giornali. Furono questi cinque negozi che la sua fanciullesca meticolosità aveva per prima scelto come gli elementi essenziali della campagna di Notting Hill, la cittadella della città. Se Notting Hill era il cuore dell’universo, e Pump Street era il cuore di Notting Hill, questo era il cuore di Pump Street. Il fatto che fossero tutti piccoli e uno accanto all’altro realizzava quel sentimento di formidabile agio e compattezza che, come abbiamo detto, era il cuore del suo patriottismo e di ogni patriottismo. Il droghiere (che aveva la licenza per vino e liquori) fu incluso perché poteva approvvigionare la guarnigione; il negozio di anticaglie perché conteneva abbastanza spade, pistole, partigiane, balestre e archibugi da armare un intero reggimento irregolare; il negozio di giocattoli e giornali perché Wayne riteneva una stampa libera un centro essenziale per l’anima di Pump Street; la farmacia per far fronte agli scoppi di malattia tra gli assediati; e il barbiere perché stava in mezzo a tutti gli altri, e il figlio del barbiere era un intimo amico e affinità spirituale.
Era una serena sera d’ottobre senza nubi, che digradava dal porpora nell’argento puro intorno ai tetti e ai comignoli della ripida stradina, che appariva nera e netta e drammatica. Nelle ombre profonde le vetrine illuminate a gas brillavano come cinque fuochi in fila, e dinanzi ad esse, oscuramente stagliata come un fantasma contro certe fornaci purgatoriali, andava avanti e indietro l’alta figura simile a un uccello e il naso d’aquila di Adam Wayne.
Faceva ruotare inquieto il bastone, e pareva parlare a se stesso a scatti.
“Vi sono, dopo tutto, degli enigmi,” disse, “anche per l’uomo che ha fede. Vi sono dubbi che restano anche dopo che la vera filosofia è compiuta in ogni piolo e in ogni chiodo. Ed eccone uno. Il normale bisogno umano, la normale condizione umana, è più alta o più bassa di quelle particolari piene dell’anima che chiamano a raccolta una gloria dubbia e pericolosa? quei particolari poteri di conoscenza o di sacrificio resi possibili solo dall’esistenza del male? Che cosa dovrebbe venire prima nei nostri affetti, le durevoli assennatezze della pace o le virtù semifolli della battaglia? Che cosa dovrebbe venire prima, l’uomo grande nella routine quotidiana o l’uomo grande nell’emergenza? Che cosa dovrebbe venire prima, per tornare all’enigma che mi sta dinanzi, il droghiere o il farmacista? Chi è più sicuramente il sostegno della città, lo svelto e cavalleresco farmacista o il benevolo droghiere che tutto provvede, il droghiere? In tali estremi dubbi spirituali è possibile scegliere una parte solo per mezzo degli istinti più alti e attenderne l’esito. In ogni caso, ho fatto la mia scelta. Che io sia perdonato se scelgo male, ma io scelgo il droghiere.”
“Buongiorno, signore,” disse il droghiere, che era un uomo di mezza età, parzialmente calvo, con ispidi favoriti e barba rossi, e la fronte solcata da tutte le preoccupazioni del piccolo commerciante. “Che cosa posso fare per lei, signore?”
Wayne si tolse il cappello entrando nel negozio, con un cerimonioso gesto che, per quanto lieve, indusse il commerciante a squadrarlo con i primi accenni di stupore.
“Vengo, signore,” disse sobriamente, “a fare appello al suo patriottismo.”
“Ebbene, signore,” disse il droghiere, “ciò suona come ai tempi in cui io ero ragazzo e si tenevano le elezioni.”
“Ne avrà di nuovo,” disse Wayne, con fermezza, “e cose ben più grandi. Ascolti, signor Mead. Conosco le tentazioni cui un droghiere è esposto verso una troppo cosmopolita filosofia. Immagino che cosa debba essere sedere tutto il giorno, come fa lei, circondato da mercanzie provenienti da tutti i confini della terra, da mari strani che non abbiamo mai solcato e strane foreste che non potremmo nemmeno raffigurarci. Nessun re d’Oriente ebbe mai simili flotte o simili carichi giungenti dall’alba e dal tramonto, e Salomone in tutta la sua gloria non era arricchito quanto uno di voi. L’India è al suo gomito,” gridò, alzando la voce e puntando il suo bastone verso un cassetto di riso, mentre il droghiere faceva un gesto di qualche allarme, “la Cina è davanti a lei, il Demerara è dietro di lei, l’America è sopra il suo capo, e in questo preciso istante, come un vecchio ammiraglio spagnolo, lei tiene Tunisi nelle sue mani.”
Il signor Mead lasciò cadere la scatola di datteri che stava appunto sollevando, e poi la raccolse di nuovo vagamente.
Wayne proseguì con colorito acceso, ma con voce più bassa:
“Conosco, dico, le tentazioni di una visione della ricchezza così internazionale, così universale. So che il suo pericolo dev’essere non di cadere come molti commercianti in una ristrettezza troppo polverosa e meccanica, ma piuttosto di essere troppo ampio, troppo generale, troppo liberale. Se un angusto nazionalismo è il pericolo del pasticciere che fa le proprie mercanzie sotto il proprio cielo, non minore è il cosmopolitismo il pericolo del droghiere. Ma io vengo a lei nel nome di quel patriottismo che nessun vagabondaggio o illuminismo dovrebbe mai spegnere del tutto, e le chiedo di ricordare Notting Hill. Poiché, dopo tutto, in questa magnificenza cosmopolita, essa ha avuto una parte non piccola. I suoi datteri possono venire dalle alte palme della Barberia, il suo zucchero dalle strane isole dei tropici, il suo tè dai villaggi segreti dell’Impero del Dragone. Perché questa stanza potesse essere ammobiliata, foreste possono essere state devastate sotto la Croce del Sud, e leviatani arpionati sotto la Stella Polare. Ma lei stesso… di certo un tesoro non trascurabile… lei stesso, il cervello che governa questi vasti interessi… lei stesso, almeno, è cresciuto in forza e saggezza tra queste grigie case e sotto questo cielo piovoso. Questa città che l’ha fatta, e così ha fatto le sue fortune, è minacciata dalla guerra. Venga avanti e narri fino ai confini della terra questa lezione. L’olio viene dal Nord e i frutti dal Sud; il riso viene dall’India e le spezie da Ceylon; le pecore vengono dalla Nuova Zelanda e gli uomini da Notting Hill.”
The grocer sat for some little while, with dim eyes and his mouth open, looking rather like a fish. Then he scratched the back of his head, and said nothing. Then he said:
“Anything out of the shop, sir?”
Wayne looked round in a dazed way. Seeing a pile of tins of pine-apple chunks, he waved his stick generally towards them.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll take those.”
“All those, sir?” said the grocer, with greatly increased interest.
“Yes, yes; all those,” replied Wayne, still a little bewildered, like a man splashed with cold water.
“Very good, sir; thank you, sir,” said the grocer with animation. “You may count upon my patriotism, sir.”
“I count upon it already,” said Wayne, and passed out into the gathering night.
The grocer put the box of dates back in its place.
“What a nice fellow he is,” he said. “It’s odd how often they are nice. Much nicer than those as are all right.”
Meanwhile Adam Wayne stood outside the glowing chemist’s shop, unmistakably wavering.
“What a weakness it is,” he muttered. “I have never got rid of it from childhood. The fear of this magic shop. The grocer is rich, he is romantic, he is poetical in the truest sense, but he is not…no, he is not supernatural. But the chemist! All the other shops stand in Notting Hill, but this stands in Elf-land. Look at those great burning bowls of colour. It must be from them that God paints the sunsets. It is superhuman, and the superhuman is all the more uncanny when it is beneficent. That is the root of the fear of God. I am afraid. But I must be a man and enter.”
He was a man, and entered. A short, dark young man was behind the counter with spectacles, and greeted him with a bright but entirely business-like smile.
“A fine evening, sir,” he said.
“Fine, indeed, strange Father,” said Adam, stretching his hands somewhat forward. “It is on such clear and mellow nights that your shop is most itself. Then they appear most perfect, those moons of green and gold and crimson, which from afar, oft guide the pilgrim of pain and sickness to this house of merciful witchcraft.”
“Can I get you anything?” asked the chemist.
“Let me see,” said Wayne, in a friendly but vague manner. “Let me have some sal-volatile.”
“Eightpence, tenpence, or one and sixpence a bottle?” said the young man genially.
“One and six…one and six,” replied Wayne, with a wild submissiveness. “I come to ask you, Mr. Bowles, a terrible question.”
He paused and collected himself.
“It is necessary,” he muttered “it is necessary to be tactful, and to suit the appeal to each profession in turn.”
“I come,” he resumed aloud, “to ask you a question which goes to the roots of your miraculous toils. Mr. Bowles, shall all this witchery cease?” And he waved his stick around the shop.
Meeting with no answer, he continued with animation:
“In Notting Hill we have felt to its core the elfish mystery of your profession. And now Notting Hill itself is threatened.”
“Anything more, sir?” asked the chemist.
“Oh,” said Wayne, somewhat disturbed, “oh, what is it chemists sell? Quinine, I think. Thank you. Shall it be destroyed? I have met these men of Bayswater and North Kensington…Mr. Bowles, they are materialists. They see no witchery in your work, even when it is brought within their own borders. They think the chemist is commonplace. They think him human.”
The chemist appeared to pause, only a moment, to take in the insult, and immediately said:
“And the next article, please?”
“Alum,” said the Provost, wildly. “I resume. It is in this sacred town alone that your priesthood is reverenced. Therefore, when you fight for us you fight not only for yourself, but for everything you typify. You fight not only for Notting Hill, but for Fairyland, for as surely as Buck and Barker and such men hold sway, the sense of Fairyland in some strange manner diminishes.”
“Anything more, sir?” asked Mr. Bowles, with unbroken cheerfulness.
“Oh yes, jujubes…Gregory powder…magnesia. The danger is imminent. In all this matter I have felt that I fought not merely for my own city (though to that I owe all my blood), but for all places in which these great ideas could prevail. I am fighting not merely for Notting Hill, but for Bayswater itself; for North Kensington itself. For if the gold-hunters prevail, these also will lose all their ancient sentiments and all the mystery of their national soul. I know I can count upon you.”
“Oh yes, sir,” said the chemist, with great animation, “we are always glad to oblige a good customer.”
Adam Wayne went out of the shop with a deep sense of fulfilment of soul.
“It is so fortunate,” he said, “to have tact, to be able to play upon the peculiar talents and specialities, the cosmopolitanism of the grocer and the world-old necromancy of the chemist. Where should I be without tact?”
Il droghiere rimase seduto per un breve momento, con gli occhi spenti e la bocca aperta, somigliando piuttosto a un pesce. Poi si grattò la nuca, e non disse nulla. Poi disse:
“Qualcosa dal negozio, signore?”
Wayne si guardò intorno con aria stordita. Vedendo una pila di scatole di pezzi d’ananas, agitò il bastone genericamente verso di esse.
“Sì,” disse, “prenderò quelle.”
“Tutte quelle, signore?” disse il droghiere, con interesse assai accresciuto.
“Sì, sì; tutte quelle,” rispose Wayne, ancora un po’ frastornato, come un uomo spruzzato d’acqua fredda.
“Benissimo, signore; grazie, signore,” disse il droghiere con animazione. “Può contare sul mio patriottismo, signore.”
“Ci conto già,” disse Wayne, e uscì nella notte che si addensava.
Il droghiere rimise a posto la scatola di datteri.
“Che bravo tipo,” disse. “È strano quanto spesso siano bravi. Molto più bravi di quelli che sono a posto.”
Intanto Adam Wayne stava fuori dalla farmacia luminosa, inequivocabilmente esitante.
“Che debolezza è mai questa,” mormorò. “Non me ne sono mai liberato fin dall’infanzia. La paura di questa bottega magica. Il droghiere è ricco, è romantico, è poetico nel senso più vero, ma non è… no, non è soprannaturale. Ma il farmacista! Tutti gli altri negozi stanno a Notting Hill, ma questo sta nel Paese degli Elfi. Guardate quelle grandi coppe ardenti di colore. Dev’essere da esse che Dio dipinge i tramonti. È sovrumano, e il sovrumano è tanto più inquietante quando è benefico. Questa è la radice del timore di Dio. Ho paura. Ma devo essere un uomo ed entrare.”
Era un uomo, ed entrò. Un giovane basso e bruno stava dietro il banco con gli occhiali, e lo salutò con un sorriso luminoso ma del tutto professionale.
“Bella serata, signore,” disse.
“Bella, davvero, strano Padre,” disse Adam, protendendo un poco le mani in avanti. “È in notti così limpide e dolci che la vostra bottega è più se stessa. Allora appaiono più perfette quelle lune di verde e d’oro e di cremisi che, di lontano, spesso guidano il pellegrino del dolore e della malattia a questa casa di misericordiosa stregoneria.”
“Posso darle qualcosa?” chiese il farmacista.
“Vediamo,” disse Wayne, in modo amichevole ma vago. “Mi dia un po’ di sale volatile.”
“Otto pence, dieci pence, o uno e sei la bottiglia?” disse il giovane cordialmente.
“Uno e sei… uno e sei,” rispose Wayne, con una selvaggia arrendevolezza. “Vengo a farle, signor Bowles, una domanda terribile.”
Fece una pausa e si ricompose.
“È necessario,” mormorò “è necessario essere pieni di tatto, e adattare l’appello a ciascuna professione a sua volta.”
“Vengo,” riprese ad alta voce, “a farle una domanda che va alle radici delle sue miracolose fatiche. Signor Bowles, dovrà cessare tutta questa stregoneria?” E agitò il bastone attorno alla bottega.
Non ricevendo risposta, continuò con animazione:
“A Notting Hill abbiamo sentito fino al midollo il mistero elfico della sua professione. E ora Notting Hill stessa è minacciata.”
“Altro, signore?” chiese il farmacista.
“Oh,” disse Wayne, alquanto turbato, “oh, che cosa vendono i farmacisti? Chinino, credo. Grazie. Dovrà essere distrutta? Ho incontrato questi uomini di Bayswater e di North Kensington… signor Bowles, sono materialisti. Non vedono alcuna stregoneria nel suo lavoro, nemmeno quando essa è portata entro i loro stessi confini. Ritengono che il farmacista sia una cosa ordinaria. Lo ritengono umano.”
Il farmacista parve indugiare, solo un istante, per incassare l’insulto, e subito disse:
“E il prossimo articolo, prego?”
“Allume,” disse il Prevosto, follemente. “Riprendo. È in questa sacra città soltanto che il vostro sacerdozio è riverito. Perciò, quando combattete per noi non combattete solo per voi stessi, ma per tutto ciò che voi simboleggiate. Non combattete solo per Notting Hill, ma per il Paese delle Fate, poiché tanto sicuramente quanto Buck e Barker e simili uomini avranno il dominio, il senso del Paese delle Fate in qualche strano modo diminuisce.”
“Altro, signore?” chiese il signor Bowles, con imperturbabile allegria.
“Oh sì, giuggiole… polvere di Gregory… magnesia. Il pericolo è imminente. In tutta questa faccenda ho sentito di combattere non solo per la mia città (benché a essa io debba tutto il mio sangue), ma per tutti i luoghi in cui queste grandi idee potrebbero prevalere. Combatto non solo per Notting Hill, ma per Bayswater stessa; per la stessa North Kensington. Poiché se i cercatori d’oro prevarranno, anche questi perderanno tutti i loro antichi sentimenti e tutto il mistero della loro anima nazionale. So di poter contare su di lei.”
“Oh sì, signore,” disse il farmacista, con grande animazione, “siamo sempre lieti di accontentare un buon cliente.”
Adam Wayne uscì dalla bottega con un profondo senso di appagamento dell’anima.
“È così fortunato,” disse, “avere tatto, poter far leva sui talenti e le specialità peculiari, sul cosmopolitismo del droghiere e sull’antichissima negromanzia del farmacista. Dove sarei senza il tatto?”
CHAPTER II
THE REMARKABLE MR. TURNBULL
AFTER two more interviews with shopmen, however, the patriot’s confidence in his own psychological diplomacy began vaguely to wane. Despite the care with which he considered the peculiar rationale and the peculiar glory of each separate shop, there seemed to be something unresponsive about the shopmen. Whether it was a dark resentment against the uninitiate for peeping into their masonic magnificence, he could not quite conjecture.
His conversation with the man who kept the shop of curiosities had begun encouragingly. The man who kept the shop of curiosities had indeed enchanted him with a phrase. He was standing drearily at the door of his shop, a wrinkled man with a grey pointed beard, evidently a gentleman who had come down in the world.
“And how does your commerce go, you strange guardian of the past?” said Wayne, affably.
“Well, sir, not very well,” replied the man, with that patient voice of his class which is one of the most heart-breaking things in the world. “Things are terribly quiet.”
Wayne’s eyes shone suddenly.
“A great saying,” he said, “worthy of a man whose merchandise is human history. Terribly quiet; that is in two words the spirit of this age, as I have felt it from my cradle. I sometimes wondered how many other people felt the oppression of this union between quietude and terror. I see blank well-ordered streets, and men in black moving about inoffensively, sullenly. It goes on day after day, day after day, and nothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might awake screaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of a thin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snap with a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the debris of the great wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know that war was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idle lads who carried those swords under Francis or Elizabeth, the rude Squire or Baron who swung that mace about in Picardy or Northumberland battles, may have been terribly noisy, but were not, like us, terribly quiet.”
Whether it was a faint embarrassment of conscience as to the original source and date of the weapons referred to, or merely an engrained depression, the guardian of the past looked, if anything, a little more worried.
“But I do not think,” continued Wayne, “that this horrible silence of modernity will last, though I think for the present it will increase. What a farce is this modern liberality. Freedom of speech means practically in our modern civilization that we must only talk about unimportant things. We must not talk about religion, for that is illiberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that is talking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; we must not talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It cannot last. Something must break this strange indifference, this strange dreamy egoism, this strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something must break it. Why should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing else but guard relics?”
The shopman wore a gradually clearing expression, which would have led those unsympathetic with the cause of the Red Lion to think that the last sentence was the only one to which he had attached any meaning.
“I am rather old to go into a new business,” he said, “and I don’t quite know what to be either.”
“Why not,” said Wayne, gently having reached the crisis of his delicate persuasion “why not be a Colonel?”
It was at this point, in all probability, that the interview began to yield more disappointing results. The man appeared inclined at first to regard the suggestion of becoming a Colonel as outside the sphere of immediate and relevant discussion. A long exposition of the inevitable war of independence, coupled with the purchase of a doubtful sixteenth-century sword for an exaggerated price, seemed to resettle matters. Wayne left the shop, however, somewhat infected with the melancholy of its owner.
That melancholy was completed at the barber’s.
“Shaving, sir?” inquired that artist from inside his shop.
“War!” replied Wayne, standing on the threshold.
“I beg your pardon,” said the other sharply.
“War!” said Wayne, warmly. “But not for anything inconsistent with the beautiful and the civilized arts. War for beauty. War for society. War for peace. A great chance is offered you of repelling that slander which, in defiance of the lives of so many artists, attributes poltroonery to those who beautify and polish the surface of our lives. Why should not hairdressers be heroes? Why should not…”
“Now, you get out,” said the barber, irascibly. “We don’t want any of your sort here. You get out.”
And he came forward with the desperate annoyance of a mild person when enraged.
Adam Wayne laid his hand for a moment on the sword, then dropped it.
“Notting Hill,” he said, “will need her bolder sons;” and he turned gloomily to the toy-shop.
It was one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in the side streets of London, which must be called toy-shops only because toys upon the whole predominate; for the remainder of goods seem to consist of almost everything else in the world…tobacco, exercise-books, sweet-stuff, novelettes, halfpenny paper clips, halfpenny pencil sharpeners, bootlaces, and cheap fireworks. It also sold newspapers, and a row of dirty-looking posters hung along the front of it.
“I am afraid,” said Wayne, as he entered, “that I am not getting on with these tradesmen as I should. Is it that I have neglected to rise to the full meaning of their work? Is there some secret buried in each of these shops which no mere poet can discover?”
He stepped to the counter with a depression which he rapidly conquered as he addressed the man on the other side of it…a man of short stature, and hair prematurely white, and the look of a large baby.
CAPITOLO II
IL NOTEVOLE SIGNOR TURNBULL
DOPO altri due colloqui con dei bottegai, tuttavia, la fiducia del patriota nella propria diplomazia psicologica cominciò vagamente a scemare. Nonostante la cura con cui considerava il particolare fondamento razionale e la particolare gloria di ogni singola bottega, pareva esservi qualcosa di insensibile nei bottegai. Se fosse un cupo risentimento contro il non iniziato per aver spiato nella loro massonica magnificenza, non riusciva bene a congetturarlo.
Il suo colloquio con l’uomo che teneva la bottega di anticaglie era cominciato in modo incoraggiante. L’uomo che teneva la bottega di anticaglie lo aveva davvero incantato con una frase. Se ne stava mestamente sulla soglia della sua bottega, un uomo raggrinzito dalla barba grigia e appuntita, evidentemente un gentiluomo caduto in basso.
“E come va il vostro commercio, strano custode del passato?” disse Wayne, affabilmente.
“Beh, signore, non molto bene,” rispose l’uomo, con quella paziente voce della sua classe che è una delle cose più strazianti del mondo. “Le cose sono terribilmente tranquille.”
Gli occhi di Wayne brillarono d’un tratto.
“Un gran detto,” disse, “degno di un uomo la cui merce è la storia umana. Terribilmente tranquille; è questo, in due parole, lo spirito di questa età, come l’ho sentito fin dalla culla. A volte mi sono chiesto quante altre persone sentissero l’oppressione di questa unione tra quiete e terrore. Vedo strade vuote e ben ordinate, e uomini in nero che si muovono inoffensivi, imbronciati. Va avanti giorno dopo giorno, giorno dopo giorno, e nulla accade; ma per me è come un sogno da cui potrei destarmi urlando. Per me la rettilineità della nostra vita è la rettilineità di una corda sottile tesa fino allo spasimo. La sua immobilità è terribile. Potrebbe spezzarsi con un fragore simile al tuono. E voi che sedete, tra le macerie delle grandi guerre, voi che sedete, per così dire, su un campo di battaglia, sapete che la guerra era meno terribile di questa malvagia pace; sapete che gli oziosi giovani che portavano quelle spade sotto Francesco o Elisabetta, il rozzo Signorotto o Barone che roteava quella mazza nelle battaglie di Piccardia o di Northumberland, potranno essere stati terribilmente rumorosi, ma non erano, come noi, terribilmente tranquilli.”
Se fosse un vago imbarazzo di coscienza circa la fonte e la data originarie delle armi cui si riferiva, o semplicemente una radicata depressione, il custode del passato appariva, semmai, un poco più preoccupato.
“Ma non credo,” proseguì Wayne, “che questo orribile silenzio della modernità durerà, benché io pensi che per il presente crescerà. Che farsa è questa liberalità moderna. La libertà di parola significa praticamente, nella nostra civiltà moderna, che dobbiamo parlare solo di cose senza importanza. Non dobbiamo parlare di religione, ché è illiberale; non dobbiamo parlare di pane e formaggio, ché è parlar di bottega; non dobbiamo parlare della morte, ché è deprimente; non dobbiamo parlare della nascita, ché è indelicato. Non può durare. Qualcosa deve rompere questa strana indifferenza, questo strano sognante egoismo, questa strana solitudine di milioni in una folla. Qualcosa deve romperla. Perché non dovremmo essere io e voi? Non sapete far altro che custodire reliquie?”
Il bottegaio assunse un’espressione gradualmente rischiarantesi, che avrebbe indotto chi non simpatizzava con la causa del Leone Rosso a pensare che l’ultima frase fosse l’unica a cui avesse attribuito un qualche significato.
“Sono piuttosto vecchio per intraprendere un nuovo affare,” disse, “e non so bene nemmeno che cosa diventare.”
“Perché no,” disse Wayne, giunto dolcemente al culmine della sua delicata persuasione “perché non diventare Colonnello?”
Fu a questo punto, con ogni probabilità, che il colloquio cominciò a dare risultati più deludenti. L’uomo parve inclinato dapprima a considerare il suggerimento di diventare Colonnello come esterno alla sfera della discussione immediata e pertinente. Una lunga esposizione dell’inevitabile guerra d’indipendenza, unita all’acquisto di una dubbia spada cinquecentesca a un prezzo esagerato, parve rassettare le cose. Wayne lasciò la bottega, tuttavia, alquanto contagiato dalla malinconia del suo proprietario.
Quella malinconia fu completata dal barbiere.
“Barba, signore?” s’informò quell’artista dall’interno della sua bottega.
“Guerra!” rispose Wayne, ritto sulla soglia.
“Chiedo scusa,” disse l’altro, seccamente.
“Guerra!” disse Wayne, con calore. “Ma non per qualcosa di incompatibile con le arti belle e civili. Guerra per la Bellezza. Guerra per la società. Guerra per la pace. Vi è offerta una grande occasione di respingere quella calunnia che, a dispetto delle vite di così tanti artisti, attribuisce codardia a coloro che abbelliscono e levigano la superficie della nostra vita. Perché i parrucchieri non dovrebbero essere eroi? Perché non…”
“Su, vattene,” disse il barbiere, irascibile. “Non ne vogliamo, dei tipi come te, qui. Vattene.”
E si fece avanti con la disperata irritazione di una persona mite quando è esasperata.
Adam Wayne posò per un istante la mano sull’spada, poi la lasciò cadere.
“Notting Hill,” disse, “avrà bisogno dei suoi figli più arditi;” e si volse cupamente verso il negozio di giocattoli.
Era una di quelle strane botteghine così di frequente visibili nelle vie laterali di Londra, che vanno chiamate negozi di giocattoli solo perché i giocattoli nel complesso predominano; ché il resto della merce pare consistere di quasi tutto il resto del mondo… tabacco, quaderni di esercizi, dolciumi, romanzetti, fermagli di carta da mezzo penny, temperini da mezzo penny, stringhe da scarpe, e fuochi d’artificio a buon mercato. Vendeva anche giornali, e una fila di manifesti dall’aspetto sudicio pendeva lungo la sua facciata.
“Temo,” disse Wayne, mentre entrava, “di non cavarmela con questi commercianti come dovrei. È forse perché ho trascurato di elevarmi al pieno significato del loro lavoro? Vi è qualche segreto sepolto in ciascuna di queste botteghe che nessun semplice poeta può scoprire?”
Si accostò al banco con una depressione che rapidamente vinse mentre si rivolgeva all’uomo dall’altro lato di esso… un uomo di bassa statura, dai capelli prematuramente bianchi, e l’aspetto di un grosso bambino.
“Sir,” said Wayne, “I am going from house to house in this street of ours, seeking to stir up some sense of the danger which now threatens our city. Nowhere have I felt my duty so difficult as here. For the toy-shop keeper has to do with all that remains to us of Eden before the first wars began. You sit here meditating continually upon the wants of that wonderful time when every staircase leads to the stars, and every garden-path to the other end of nowhere. Is it thoughtlessly, do you think, that I strike the dark old drum of peril in the paradise of children? But consider a moment; do not condemn me hastily. Even that paradise itself contains the rumour or beginning of that danger, just as the Eden that was made for perfection contained the terrible tree. For judge childhood, even by your own arsenal of its pleasures. You keep bricks; you make yourself thus, doubtless, the witness of the constructive instinct older than the destructive. You keep dolls; you make yourself the priest of that divine idolatry. You keep Noah’s Arks; you perpetuate the memory of the salvation of all life as a precious, an irreplaceable thing. But do you keep only, sir, the symbols of this prehistoric sanity, this childish rationality of the earth? Do you not keep more terrible things? What are those boxes, seemingly of lead soldiers, that I see in that glass case? Are they not witnesses to that terror and beauty, that desire for a lovely death, which could not be excluded even from the immortality of Eden? Do not despise the lead soldiers, Mr. Turnbull.”
“I don’t,” said Mr. Turnbull, of the toy-shop, shortly, but with great emphasis.
“I am glad to hear it,” replied Wayne. “I confess that I feared for my military schemes the awful innocence of your profession. How, I thought to myself, will this man, used only to the wooden swords that give pleasure, think of the steel swords that give pain? But I am at least partly reassured. Your tone suggests to me that I have at least the entry of a gate of your fairyland…the gate through which the soldiers enter, for it cannot be denied…I ought, sir, no longer to deny, that it is of soldiers that I come to speak. Let your gentle employment make you merciful towards the troubles of the world. Let your own silvery experience tone down our sanguine sorrows. For there is war in Notting Hill.”
The little toy-shop keeper sprang up suddenly, slapping his fat hands like two fans on the counter.
“War?” he cried. “Not really, sir? Is it true? Oh, what a joke? Oh, what a sight for sore eyes!”
Wayne was almost taken aback by this outburst.
“I am delighted,” he stammered. “I had no notion…”
He sprang out of the way just in time to avoid Mr. Turnbull, who took a flying leap over the counter and dashed to the front of the shop.
“You look here, sir,” he said; “you just look here.”
He came back with two of the torn posters in his hand which were flapping outside his shop.
“Look at those, sir,” he said, and flung them down on the counter.
Wayne bent over them, and read on one:
“LAST FIGHTING. REDUCTION OF THE CENTRAL DERVISH CITY. REMARKABLE, ETC.”
On the other he read:
“LAST SMALL REPUBLIC ANNEXED. NICARAGUAN CAPITAL SURRENDERS AFTER A MONTH’S FIGHTING. GREAT SLAUGHTER.”
Wayne bent over them again, evidently puzzled; then he looked at the dates. They were both dated in August fifteen years before.
“Why do you keep these old things?” he said, startled entirely out of his absurd tact of mysticism. “Why do you hang them outside your shop?”
“Because,” said the other simply, “they are the records of the last war. You mentioned war just now. It happens to be my hobby.”
Wayne lifted his large blue eyes with an infantile wonder.
“Come with me,” said Turnbull, shortly, and led him into a parlour at the back of the shop.
In the centre of the parlour stood a large deal table. On it were set rows and rows of the tin and lead soldiers which were part of the shopkeeper’s stock. The visitor would have thought nothing of it if it had not been for a certain odd grouping of them, which did not seem either entirely commercial or entirely haphazard.
“You are acquainted, no doubt,” said Turnbull, turning his big eyes upon Wayne “you are acquainted, no doubt, with the arrangement of the American and Nicaraguan troops in the last battle.” And he waved his hand towards the table.
“I am afraid not,” said Wayne. “I…”
“Ah, you were at that time occupied too much, perhaps with the Dervish affair. You will find it in this corner.” And he pointed to a part of the floor where there was another arrangement of children’s soldiers grouped here and there.
“You seem,” said Wayne, “to be interested in military matters.”
“I am interested in nothing else,” answered the toy-shop keeper, simply.
Wayne appeared convulsed with a singular, suppressed excitement.
“In that case,” he said, “I may approach you with an unusual degree of confidence. Touching the matter of the defence of Notting Hill, I…”
“Defence of Notting Hill? Yes, sir. This way, sir,” said Turnbull, with great perturbation. “Just step into this side room;” and he led Wayne into another apartment, in which the table was entirely covered with an arrangement of children’s bricks. A second glance at it told Wayne that the bricks were arranged in the form of a precise and perfect plan of Notting Hill. “Sir,” said Turnbull, impressively, “you have, by a kind of accident, hit upon the whole secret of my life. As a boy, I grew up among the last wars of the world, when Nicaragua was taken and the dervishes wiped out. And I adopted it as a hobby, sir, as you might adopt astronomy or bird-stuffing. I had no ill-will to any one, but I was interested in war as a science, as a game. And suddenly I was bowled out. The big Powers of the world, having swallowed up all the small ones, came to that confounded agreement, and there was no more war. There was nothing more for me to do but to do what I do now…to read the old campaigns in dirty old newspapers, and to work them out with tin soldiers. One other thing had occurred to me. I thought it an amusing fancy to make a plan of how this district of ours ought to be defended if it were ever attacked. It seems to interest you too.”
“Signore,” disse Wayne, “vado di casa in casa in questa nostra strada, cercando di suscitare qualche senso del pericolo che ora minaccia la nostra città. In nessun luogo ho sentito il mio compito tanto difficile quanto qui. Poiché il negoziante di giocattoli ha a che fare con tutto ciò che ci resta dell’Eden prima che cominciassero le prime guerre. Voi sedete qui meditando di continuo sui desideri di quel meraviglioso tempo in cui ogni scala conduce alle stelle, e ogni sentiero del giardino all’altro capo del nulla. È forse sconsideratamente, credete voi, che batto il cupo vecchio tamburo del pericolo nel paradiso dei bambini? Ma considerate un momento; non condannatemi frettolosamente. Perfino quel paradiso stesso contiene la voce o l’inizio di quel pericolo, proprio come l’Eden che fu fatto per la perfezione conteneva l’albero terribile. Poiché giudicate l’infanzia, anche solo dal vostro stesso arsenale dei suoi piaceri. Voi tenete i mattoncini; vi fate così, senza dubbio, testimone dell’istinto costruttivo più antico di quello distruttivo. Voi tenete le bambole; vi fate sacerdote di quella divina idolatria. Voi tenete le Arche di Noè; perpetuate la memoria della salvezza di ogni vita come una cosa preziosa, insostituibile. Ma tenete solo, signore, i simboli di questa preistorica assennatezza, di questa fanciullesca razionalità della terra? Non tenete forse cose più terribili? Che cosa sono quelle scatole, in apparenza di soldatini di piombo, che vedo in quella vetrina? Non sono forse testimoni di quel terrore e di quella bellezza, di quel desiderio di una bella morte, che non poteva essere escluso nemmeno dall’immortalità dell’Eden? Non disprezzate i soldatini di piombo, signor Turnbull.”
“Non li disprezzo,” disse il signor Turnbull, del negozio di giocattoli, brevemente, ma con grande enfasi.
“Sono lieto di sentirlo,” rispose Wayne. “Confesso che temevo per i miei schemi militari la terribile innocenza della vostra professione. Come, mi dicevo, penserà quest’uomo, avvezzo solo alle spade di legno che danno piacere, alle spade d’acciaio che danno dolore? Ma sono almeno in parte rassicurato. Il vostro tono mi suggerisce che ho almeno l’ingresso di una porta del vostro paese delle fate… la porta attraverso cui entrano i soldati, poiché non si può negare… non dovrei, signore, più a lungo negare, che è di soldati che vengo a parlare. Che il vostro gentile impiego vi renda misericordioso verso i travagli del mondo. Che la vostra stessa argentea esperienza attenui i nostri sanguigni dolori. Poiché c’è guerra a Notting Hill.”
Il piccolo negoziante di giocattoli balzò in piedi d’improvviso, battendo le grasse mani come due ventagli sul banco.
“Guerra?” gridò. “Non davvero, signore? È vero? Oh, che spasso! Oh, che spettacolo per gli occhi affaticati!”
Wayne fu quasi sconcertato da questo scoppio.
“Ne sono deliziato,” balbettò. “Non avevo idea…”
Balzò di lato appena in tempo per evitare il signor Turnbull, che spiccò un salto volante oltre il banco e si precipitò verso il davanti del negozio.
“Guardi qui, signore,” disse; “guardi proprio qui.”
Tornò con due dei manifesti strappati in mano, che sventolavano fuori dal suo negozio.
“Guardi quelli, signore,” disse, e li scaraventò sul banco.
Wayne si chinò su di essi, e lesse su uno:
“ULTIMI COMBATTIMENTI. RIDUZIONE DELLA CITTÀ CENTRALE DEI DERVISCI. NOTEVOLE, ECC.”
Sull’altro lesse:
“ULTIMA PICCOLA REPUBBLICA ANNESSA. LA CAPITALE NICARAGUENSE SI ARRENDE DOPO UN MESE DI COMBATTIMENTI. GRANDE STRAGE.”
Wayne si chinò di nuovo su di essi, evidentemente perplesso; poi guardò le date. Erano entrambi datati nell’agosto di quindici anni prima.
“Perché conserva queste vecchie cose?” disse, scosso del tutto fuori dal suo assurdo tatto di misticismo. “Perché le appende fuori dal suo negozio?”
“Perché,” disse l’altro semplicemente, “sono i documenti dell’ultima guerra. Lei ha appena menzionato la guerra. Si dà il caso che sia il mio passatempo.”
Wayne levò i suoi grandi occhi azzurri con un infantile stupore.
“Venga con me,” disse Turnbull, brevemente, e lo condusse in un salottino sul retro del negozio.
Al centro del salottino stava un grande tavolo di abete. Su di esso erano disposte file e file dei soldatini di stagno e di piombo che facevano parte delle scorte del negoziante. Il visitatore non vi avrebbe pensato nulla se non fosse stato per un certo curioso raggruppamento di essi, che non pareva né del tutto commerciale né del tutto casuale.
“Lei conosce, senza dubbio,” disse Turnbull, volgendo i suoi grandi occhi su Wayne “lei conosce, senza dubbio, la disposizione delle truppe americane e nicaraguensi nell’ultima battaglia.” E agitò la mano verso il tavolo.
“Temo di no,” disse Wayne. “Io…”
“Ah, lei era a quel tempo troppo occupato, forse, con la faccenda dei dervisci. La troverà in quest’angolo.” E indicò una parte del pavimento dove c’era un’altra disposizione di soldatini per bambini raggruppati qua e là.
“Lei sembra,” disse Wayne, “interessato alle questioni militari.”
“Non sono interessato a nient’altro,” rispose il negoziante di giocattoli, semplicemente.
Wayne apparve scosso da una singolare, repressa eccitazione.
“In tal caso,” disse, “posso rivolgermi a lei con un insolito grado di fiducia. Riguardo alla questione della difesa di Notting Hill, io…”
“Difesa di Notting Hill? Sì, signore. Da questa parte, signore,” disse Turnbull, con grande agitazione. “Passi giusto in questa stanza laterale;” e condusse Wayne in un altro ambiente, in cui il tavolo era interamente coperto da una disposizione di mattoncini per bambini. Una seconda occhiata rivelò a Wayne che i mattoncini erano disposti nella forma di una precisa e perfetta pianta di Notting Hill. “Signore,” disse Turnbull, con enfasi, “lei ha, per una specie di caso, colto l’intero segreto della mia vita. Da ragazzo, crebbi tra le ultime guerre del mondo, quando il Nicaragua fu preso e i dervisci spazzati via. E lo adottai come passatempo, signore, come lei potrebbe adottare l’astronomia o l’imbalsamazione degli uccelli. Non avevo malanimo verso nessuno, ma ero interessato alla guerra come scienza, come gioco. E d’un tratto fui messo fuori causa. Le grandi Potenze del mondo, avendo inghiottito tutte le piccole, giunsero a quel maledetto accordo, e non ci fu più guerra. Non c’era più nulla da fare per me se non ciò che faccio ora… leggere le vecchie campagne su vecchi giornali sudici, ed elaborarle coi soldatini di stagno. Un’altra cosa mi era venuta in mente. Ritenni un’idea divertente fare una pianta di come questo nostro distretto dovrebbe essere difeso se mai fosse attaccato. Pare che interessi anche lei.”
“If it were ever attacked,” repeated Wayne, awed into an almost mechanical. enunciation. “Mr. Turnbull, it is attacked. Thank Heaven, I am bringing to at least one human being the news that is at bottom the only good news to any son of Adam. Your life has not been useless. Your work has not been play. Now, when the hair is already grey on your head, Turnbull, you shall have your youth. God has not destroyed it, He has only deferred it. Let us sit down here, and you shall explain to me this military map of Notting Hill. For you and I have to defend Notting Hill together.”
Mr. Turnbull looked at the other for a moment, then hesitated, and then sat down beside the bricks and the stranger. He did not rise again for seven hours, when the dawn broke.
… . .
The headquarters of Provost Adam Wayne and his Commander-in-Chief consisted of a small and somewhat unsuccessful milk-shop at the corner of Pump Street. The blank white morning had only just begun to break over the blank London buildings when Wayne and Turnbull were to be found seated in the cheerless and unswept shop. Wayne had something feminine in his character; he belonged to that class of persons who forget their meals when anything interesting is in hand. He had had nothing for sixteen hours but hurried glasses of milk, and, with a glass standing empty beside him, he was writing and sketching and dotting and crossing out with inconceivable rapidity with a pencil and a piece of paper. Turnbull was of that more masculine type in which a sense of responsibility increases the appetite, and with his sketch-map beside him he was dealing strenuously with a pile of sandwiches in a paper packet, and a tankard of ale from the tavern opposite, whose shutters had just been taken down. Neither of them spoke, and there was no sound in the living stillness except the scratching of Wayne’s pencil and the squealing of an aimless-looking cat. At length Wayne broke the silence by saying:
“Seventeen pounds, eight shillings and nine-pence.”
Turnbull nodded and put his head in the tankard.
“That,” said Wayne, “is not counting the five pounds you took yesterday. What did you do with it?”
“Ah, that is rather interesting!” replied Turnbull, with his mouth full. “I used that five pounds in a kindly and philanthropic act.”
Wayne was gazing with mystification in his queer and innocent eyes.
“I used that five pounds,” continued the other, “in giving no less than forty little London boys rides in hansom cabs.”
“Are you insane?” asked the Provost.
“It is only my light touch,” returned Turnbull. “These hansom-cab rides will raise the tone…raise the tone, my dear fellow…of our London youths, widen their horizon, brace their nervous system, make them acquainted with the various public monuments of our great city. Education, Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointed out that political reform is useless until we produce a cultured populace. So that twenty years hence, when these boys are grown up…”
“Mad!” said Wayne, laying down his pencil; “and five pounds gone!”
“You are in error,” explained Turnbull. “You grave creatures can never be brought to understand how much quicker work really goes with the assistance of nonsense and good meals. Stripped of its decorative beauties, my statement was strictly accurate. Last night I gave forty half-crowns to forty little boys, and sent them all over London to take hansom cabs. I told them in every case to tell the cabman to bring them to this spot. In half an hour from now the declaration of war will be posted up. At the same time the cabs will have begun to come in, you will have ordered out the guard, the little boys will drive up in state, we shall commandeer the horses for cavalry, use the cabs for barricade, and give the men the choice between serving in our ranks and detention in our basements and cellars. The little boys we can use as scouts. The main thing is that we start the war with an advantage unknown in all the other armies…horses. And now,” he said, finishing his beer, “I will go and drill the troops.”
And he walked out of the milk-shop, leaving the Provost staring.
A minute or two afterwards, the Provost laughed. He only laughed once or twice in his life, and then he did it in a queer way as if it were an art he had not mastered. Even he saw something funny in the preposterous coup of the half-crowns and the little boys. He did not see the monstrous absurdity of the whole policy and the whole war. He enjoyed it seriously as a crusade, that is, he enjoyed it far more than any joke can be enjoyed. Turnbull enjoyed it partly as a joke, even more perhaps as a reversion from the things he hated…modernity and monotony and civilization. To break up the vast machinery of modern life and use the fragments as engines of war, to make the barricade of omnibuses and points of vantage of chimneypots, was to him a game worth infinite risk and trouble. He had that rational and deliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life and a merry one.
“Se mai fosse attaccato,” ripeté Wayne, atterrito fino a una quasi meccanica enunciazione. “Signor Turnbull, è attaccato. Grazie al Cielo, porto ad almeno un essere umano la notizia che è in fondo l’unica buona notizia per ogni figlio di Adamo. La sua vita non è stata inutile. Il suo lavoro non è stato un gioco. Ora, quando i capelli sono già grigi sul suo capo, Turnbull, avrà la sua giovinezza. Dio non l’ha distrutta, l’ha solo differita. Sediamoci qui, e lei mi spiegherà questa carta militare di Notting Hill. Poiché lei e io dobbiamo difendere Notting Hill insieme.”
Il signor Turnbull guardò l’altro per un momento, poi esitò, e poi si sedette accanto ai mattoncini e allo straniero. Non si rialzò per sette ore, quando spuntò l’alba.
… . .
Il quartier generale del Prevosto Adam Wayne e del suo Comandante in Capo consisteva in una piccola e alquanto malandata latteria all’angolo di Pump Street. Il bianco e vuoto mattino aveva appena cominciato a spuntare sui vuoti edifici di Londra quando Wayne e Turnbull furono trovati seduti nella squallida e non spazzata bottega. Wayne aveva qualcosa di femminile nel carattere; apparteneva a quella classe di persone che dimenticano i pasti quando hanno per le mani qualcosa d’interessante. Non aveva preso nulla per sedici ore se non frettolosi bicchieri di latte, e, con un bicchiere vuoto accanto a sé, scriveva e schizzava e punteggiava e cancellava con inconcepibile rapidità con una matita e un pezzo di carta. Turnbull era di quel tipo più maschile in cui un senso di responsabilità accresce l’appetito, e con la sua mappa-schizzo accanto trattava vigorosamente una pila di panini in un cartoccio di carta, e un boccale di birra dalla taverna di fronte, le cui imposte erano appena state tolte. Nessuno dei due parlava, e non c’era suono nella viva immobilità se non il graffiare della matita di Wayne e lo squittire di un gatto dall’aria sperduta. Alla fine Wayne ruppe il silenzio dicendo:
“Diciassette sterline, otto scellini e nove pence.”
Turnbull annuì e tuffò il capo nel boccale.
“Questo,” disse Wayne, “senza contare le cinque sterline che ha preso ieri. Che ne ha fatto?”
“Ah, questo è piuttosto interessante!” rispose Turnbull, con la bocca piena. “Ho usato quelle cinque sterline in un atto gentile e filantropico.”
Wayne fissava con perplessità nei suoi occhi strani e innocenti.
“Ho usato quelle cinque sterline,” continuò l’altro, “per offrire a non meno di quaranta ragazzini di Londra corse in carrozzella.”
“È impazzito?” chiese il Prevosto.
“È solo il mio tocco leggero,” ribatté Turnbull. “Queste corse in carrozzella eleveranno il tono… eleveranno il tono, mio caro amico… della nostra gioventù londinese, allargheranno i loro orizzonti, rinvigoriranno il loro sistema nervoso, li renderanno edotti dei vari monumenti pubblici della nostra grande città. Istruzione, Wayne, istruzione. Quanti eccellenti pensatori hanno fatto notare che la riforma politica è inutile finché non produciamo una popolazione colta. Cosicché fra vent’anni, quando questi ragazzi saranno cresciuti…”
“Pazzo!” disse Wayne, posando la matita; “e cinque sterline andate!”
“Lei è in errore,” spiegò Turnbull. “Voi creature solenni non si può mai portarvi a capire quanto più in fretta proceda il lavoro con l’aiuto delle sciocchezze e dei buoni pasti. Spogliata delle sue bellezze decorative, la mia affermazione era rigorosamente esatta. La notte scorsa ho dato quaranta mezze corone a quaranta ragazzini, e li ho mandati per tutta Londra a prendere carrozzelle. In ogni caso ho detto loro di dire al vetturino di portarli in questo punto. Fra mezz’ora da adesso la dichiarazione di guerra sarà affissa. Nello stesso tempo le carrozze avranno cominciato ad arrivare, lei avrà ordinato di far uscire la guardia, i ragazzini arriveranno in pompa magna, requisiremo i cavalli per la cavalleria, useremo le carrozze per la barricata, e daremo agli uomini la scelta tra il servire nelle nostre file e la detenzione nei nostri scantinati e nelle nostre cantine. I ragazzini possiamo usarli come esploratori. La cosa principale è che iniziamo la guerra con un vantaggio sconosciuto a tutti gli altri eserciti… i cavalli. E ora,” disse, finendo la sua birra, “andrò ad addestrare le truppe.”
E uscì dalla latteria, lasciando il Prevosto a bocca aperta.
Un minuto o due dopo, il Prevosto rise. Rise solo una o due volte in vita sua, e allora lo fece in un modo strano, come se fosse un’arte che non aveva padroneggiato. Perfino lui vide qualcosa di buffo nell’assurdo colpo delle mezze corone e dei ragazzini. Non vide la mostruosa assurdità dell’intera politica e dell’intera guerra. La godette seriamente come una crociata, cioè, la godette assai più di quanto qualsiasi scherzo possa essere goduto. Turnbull la godette in parte come uno scherzo, ancor più forse come una reazione dalle cose che odiava… la modernità e la monotonia e la civiltà. Fare a pezzi il vasto macchinario della vita moderna e usarne i frammenti come macchine da guerra, fare la barricata di omnibus e i punti di vantaggio di comignoli, era per lui un gioco che valeva rischio e travaglio infiniti. Aveva quella razionale e deliberata preferenza che turberà sempre, fino alla fine, la pace del mondo: la razionale e deliberata preferenza per una vita breve e allegra.
CHAPTER III
THE EXPERIMENT OF MR. BUCK
AN earnest and eloquent petition was sent up to the King signed with the names of Wilson, Barker, Buck, Swindon and others. It urged that at the forthcoming conference to be held in his Majesty’s presence touching the final disposition of the property in Pump Street, it might be held not inconsistent with political decorum and with the unutterable respect they entertained for his Majesty if they appeared in ordinary morning dress, without the costume decreed for them as Provosts. So it happened that the company appeared at that council in frock-coats and that the King himself limited his love of cefemony to appearing (after his not unusual manner) in evening dress with one order…in this case not the Garter, but the button of the Club of Old Clipper’s Best Pals, a decoration obtained (with difficulty) from a halfpenny boy’s paper. Thus also it happened that the only spot of colour in the room was Adam Wayne, who entered in great dignity with the great red robes and the great sword.
“We have met,” said Auberon, “to decide the most arduous of modern problems. May we be successful.” And he sat down gravely.
Buck turned his chair a little and flung one leg over the other.
“Your majesty,” he said, quite good-humouredly, “there is only one thing I can’t understand, and that is why this affair is not settled in five minutes. Here’s a small property which is worth a thousand to us and is not worth a hundred to any one else. We offer the thousand. It’s not business-like, I know, for we ought to get it for less, and it’s not reasonable and it’s not fair on us, but I’m damned if I can see why it’s difficult.”
“The difficulty may be very simply stated,” said Wayne. “You may offer a million and it will be very difficult for you to get Pump Street.”
“But, look here, Mr. Wayne,” cried Barker, striking in with a kind of cold excitement. “Just look here. You’ve no right to take up a position like that. You’ve a right to stand out for a bigger price, but you aren’t doing that. You’re refusing what you and every sane man know to be a splendid offer simply from malice or spite…it must be malice or spite. And that kind of thing is really criminal; it’s against the public good; The King’s Government would be justified in forging you.”
With his lean fingers spread on the table he stared anxiously at Wayne’s face, which did not move.
“In forcing you … it would,” he repeated.
“It shall,” said Buck, shortly, turning to the table with a jerk. “We have done our best to be decent.”
Wayne lifted his large eyes slowly.
“Was it my Lord Buck,” he inquired, “who said that the King of England ‘shall’ do something?”
Buck flushed and said testily:
“I mean it must…it ought to, as I say we’ve done our best to be generous. I defy any one to deny it. As it is Mr. Wayne, I don’t want to say a word that’s uncivil. I hope it’s not uncivil to say that you can be, and ought to be, in gaol. It is criminal to stop public works for a whim. A man might as well burn ten thousand onions in his front garden or bring up his children to run naked in the street, as do what you say you have a right to do. People have been compelled to sell before now. The King could compel you, and I hope he will.”
“Until he does,” said Wayne, calmly, “the power and government of this great nation is on my side and not yours, and I defy you to defy it.”
“In what sense,” cried Barker, with his feverish eyes and hands, “is the Government on your side?”
With one ringing movement Wayne unrolled a great parchment on the table. It was decorated down the sides with wild water-colour sketches of vestrymen in crowns and wreaths.
“The Charter of the Cities,” he began.
Buck exploded in a brutal oath and laughed.
“That tomfool’s joke. Haven’t we had enough…”
“And there you sit,” cried Wayne, springing erect and with a voice like a trumpet, “with no argument but to insult the King before his face.”
Buck rose also with blazing eyes.
“I am hard to bully,” he began…and the slow tones of the King struck in with incomparable gravity:
“My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is present. It is not often that he needs to protect himself among his subjects.”
Barker turned to him with frantic gestures.
“For God’s sake don’t back up the madman now,” he implored. “Have your joke another time. Oh, for Heaven’s sake…”
“My Lord Provost of South Kensington,” said King Auberon, steadily. “I do not follow your remarks which are uttered with a rapidity unusual at Court. Nor do your well-meant efforts to convey the rest with your fingers materially assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of North Kensington, to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of his Sovereign to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign’s ordinances. Do you disagree?”
Barker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed without speaking. The King went on in a comfortable voice:
“My Lord Provost of Notting Hill, proceed.”
Wayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one’s surprise there was a look in them not of triumph, but of a certain childish distress.
“I am sorry, your Majesty,” he said; “I fear I was more than equally to blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. We were debating somewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our feet. I did so first, I am ashamed to say. The Provost of North Kensington is, therefore, comparatively innocent. I beseech your Majesty to address your rebuke chiefly, at least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did no doubt, in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the rest of the discussion he seems to me to have conducted with great good temper.”
Buck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all simple-minded, and have therefore that degree of communion with fanatics. The King, for some reason, looked, for the first time in his life, ashamed.
CAPITOLO III
L’ESPERIMENTO DI MR. BUCK
UN’accorata ed eloquente petizione fu inoltrata al Re firmata coi nomi di Wilson, Barker, Buck, Swindon e altri. Vi si sosteneva che, all’imminente conferenza da tenersi alla presenza di Sua Maestà circa la definitiva destinazione della proprietà di Pump Street, non si sarebbe ritenuto incompatibile col decoro politico e con l’indicibile rispetto che essi nutrivano per Sua Maestà se fossero comparsi in ordinario abito da mattina, senza il costume decretato per loro come Prevosti. Così accadde che la compagnia comparve a quel consiglio in redingote e che il Re stesso limitò il suo amore per la cerimonia comparendo (secondo la sua non insolita maniera) in abito da sera con un solo ordine… in questo caso non la Giarrettiera, ma il distintivo del Club dei Migliori Compari del Vecchio Clipper, decorazione ottenuta (con difficoltà) da un giornaletto per ragazzi da mezzo penny. Così pure accadde che l’unica macchia di colore nella sala fosse Adam Wayne, che entrò con grande dignità con la grande veste rossa e la grande spada.
«Ci siamo riuniti», disse Auberon, «per decidere il più arduo dei problemi moderni. Che si possa aver successo.» E si sedette con gravità.
Buck girò un poco la sedia e accavallò una gamba sull’altra.
«Vostra maestà», disse, di ottimo umore, «c’è solo una cosa che non riesco a capire, ed è perché questa faccenda non si risolva in cinque minuti. Ecco una piccola proprietà che per noi vale mille e non vale cento per chiunque altro. Noi offriamo i mille. Non è da uomini d’affari, lo so, perché dovremmo ottenerla per meno, e non è ragionevole e non è giusto verso di noi, ma che io sia dannato se riesco a capire perché sia difficile.»
«La difficoltà si può esporre assai semplicemente», disse Wayne. «Potete offrire un milione e vi sarà molto difficile ottenere Pump Street.»
«Ma, sentite qui, Mr. Wayne», esclamò Barker, intervenendo con una specie di fredda concitazione. «Sentite un po’. Non avete alcun diritto di assumere una posizione simile. Avete il diritto di tener duro per un prezzo maggiore, ma non è ciò che state facendo. State rifiutando quella che voi e ogni uomo sano di mente sapete essere un’offerta splendida, per pura malizia o dispetto… dev’essere malizia o dispetto. E quel genere di cosa è davvero criminale; è contro il bene pubblico; il Governo del Re sarebbe giustificato nel costringervi.»
Con le magre dita distese sul tavolo fissava ansiosamente il volto di Wayne, che non si mosse.
«Nel costringervi… lo sarebbe», ripeté.
«Lo farà», disse Buck, in breve, voltandosi verso il tavolo con uno scatto. «Abbiamo fatto del nostro meglio per essere corretti.»
Wayne sollevò lentamente i grandi occhi.
«È stato mio Lord Buck», domandò, «a dire che il Re d’Inghilterra ‘farà’ qualcosa?»
Buck arrossì e disse stizzito:
«Voglio dire che deve… che dovrebbe, come dico abbiamo fatto del nostro meglio per essere generosi. Sfido chiunque a negarlo. Stando così le cose, Mr. Wayne, non voglio dire una parola scortese. Spero non sia scortese dire che potete, e dovreste, essere in prigione. È criminale fermare i lavori pubblici per un capriccio. Un uomo potrebbe anche bruciare diecimila cipolle nel suo giardino davanti a casa o allevare i figli perché corrano nudi per strada, come fare ciò che dite di aver diritto di fare. La gente è stata costretta a vendere anche in passato. Il Re potrebbe costringervi, e spero che lo farà.»
«Finché non lo fa», disse Wayne, con calma, «la potenza e il governo di questa grande nazione sono dalla mia parte e non dalla vostra, e vi sfido a sfidarli.»
«In che senso», esclamò Barker, coi suoi occhi e le sue mani febbrili, «il Governo è dalla vostra parte?»
Con un solo gesto squillante Wayne srotolò una grande pergamena sul tavolo. Era decorata lungo i margini con selvaggi schizzi ad acquerello di consiglieri parrocchiali con corone e ghirlande.
«La Carta delle Città», cominciò.
Buck esplose in una bestemmia brutale e rise.
«Quello scherzo da buffone. Non ne abbiamo avuto abbastanza…»
«Ed eccovi lì seduto», esclamò Wayne, scattando in piedi e con una voce come una tromba, «senza altro argomento che insultare il Re in faccia.»
Anche Buck si alzò con occhi fiammeggianti.
«Non è facile intimidirmi», cominciò… e i lenti toni del Re intervennero con incomparabile gravità:
«Mio Lord Buck, devo pregarvi di ricordare che il vostro Re è presente. Non è spesso che egli abbia bisogno di proteggersi tra i suoi sudditi.»
Barker si volse a lui con gesti frenetici.
«Per l’amor di Dio, non spalleggiate ora il pazzo», implorò. «Fate il vostro scherzo un’altra volta. Oh, per amor del Cielo…»
«Mio Lord Prevosto di South Kensington», disse Re Auberon, con fermezza. «Non seguo le vostre osservazioni, pronunciate con una rapidità insolita a Corte. Né i vostri ben intenzionati sforzi di trasmettere il resto con le dita mi assistono materialmente. Dico che il mio Lord Prevosto di North Kensington, cui parlavo, non dovrebbe alla presenza del suo Sovrano parlare irrispettosamente delle ordinanze del suo Sovrano. Siete in disaccordo?»
Barker si agitò irrequieto sulla sedia, e Buck imprecò senza parlare. Il Re proseguì con voce tranquilla:
«Mio Lord Prevosto di Notting Hill, procedete.»
Wayne volse i suoi occhi azzurri sul Re, e con sorpresa di tutti vi era in essi non uno sguardo di trionfo, ma di una certa infantile angoscia.
«Mi dispiace, vostra Maestà», disse; «temo di essere stato più che egualmente in colpa col Lord Prevosto di North Kensington. Discutevamo con una certa foga, e entrambi ci alzammo in piedi. Fui io a farlo per primo, mi vergogno a dirlo. Il Prevosto di North Kensington è, quindi, comparativamente innocente. Supplico vostra Maestà di rivolgere il vostro rimprovero principalmente, almeno, a me. Mr. Buck non è innocente, poiché senza dubbio, nel calore del momento, parlò irrispettosamente. Ma il resto della discussione mi pare l’abbia condotto con grande buon umore.»
Buck parve sinceramente compiaciuto, poiché gli uomini d’affari sono tutti d’animo semplice, e hanno perciò quel grado di comunione coi fanatici. Il Re, per qualche ragione, parve, per la prima volta in vita sua, vergognarsi.
“This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill,” began Buck, pleasantly, “seems to me to show that we have at last got on to a friendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five hundred pounds have been offered to you for a property you admit not to be worth a hundred. Well, I am a rich man and I won’t be outdone in generosity. Let us say fifteen hundred pounds and have done with it. And let us shake hands.” And he rose, glowing and laughing.
“Fifteen hundred pounds,” whispered Mr. Wilson of Bayswater; “can we do fifteen hundred pounds?”
“I’ll stand the racket,” said Buck heartily. “Mr. Wayne is a gentleman and has spoken up for me. So I suppose the negotiations are at an end.”
Wayne bowed.
“They are indeed at an end. I am sorry I cannot sell you the property.”
“What?” cried Mr. Barker, starting to his feet.
“Mr. Buck has spoken correctly,” said the King.
“I have, I have,” cried Buck, springing up also; “I said…”
“Mr. Buck has spoken correctly,” said the King; “the negotiations are at an end.”
All the men at the table rose to their feet; Wayne alone rose without excitement.
“Have I, then,” he said, “your Majesty’s permission to depart? I have given my last answer.”
“You have it,” said Auberon, smiling, but not lifting his eyes from the table. And amid a dead silence the Provost of Notting Hill passed out of the room.
“Well?” said Wilson, turning round to Barker, “Well?”
Barker shook his head desperately.
“The man ought to be in an asylum,” he said. “But one thing is clear, we need not bother further about him. The man can be treated as mad.”
“Of course,” said Buck, turning to him with sombre decisiveness. “You’re perfectly right, Barker. He is a good enough fellow, but he can be treated as mad. Let’s put it in simple form. Go and tell any twelve men in any town, go and tell any doctor in any town, that there is a man offered fifteen hundred pounds for a thing he could sell commonly for four hundred, and that when asked for a reason for not accepting it he pleads the inviolate sanctity of Notting Hill and calls it the Holy Mountain. What would they say? What more can we have on our side than the common-sense of everybody? On what else do all laws rest? I’ll tell you, Barker, what’s better than any further discussion. Let’s send in workmen on the spot to pull down Pump Street. And if old Wayne says a word, arrest him as a lunatic. That’s all.”
Barker’s eyes kindled.
“I always regarded you, Buck, if you don’t mind my saying so, as a very strong man. I’ll follow you.”
“So, of course will I,” said Wilson.
Buck rose again impulsively.
“Your Majesty,” he said, glowing with popularity, “I beseech your Majesty to consider favourably the proposal to which we have committed ourselves. Your Majesty’s leniency, our own offers, have fallen in vain on that extraordinary man. He may be right. He may be God. He may be the devil. But we think it, for practical purposes, more probable that he is off his head. Unless that assumption were acted on, all human affairs would go to pieces. We act on it, and we propose to start operations in Notting Hill at once.”
The King leaned back in his chair.
“The Charter of the Cities…” he said with a rich intonation.
But Buck, being finally serious, was also cautious, and did not again make the mistake of disrespect.
“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing, “I am not here to say a word against anything your Majesty has said or done. You are a far better educated man than I, and no doubt there were reasons, upon intellectual grounds, for those proceedings. But may I ask you and appeal to your common good-nature for a sincere answer? When you drew up the Charter of the Cities did you contemplate the rise of a man like Adam Wayne? Did you expect that the Charter…whether it was an experiment, or a scheme of decoration, or a joke…could ever really come to this…to stopping a vast scheme of ordinary business, to shutting up a road, to spoiling the chances of cabs, omnibuses, railway stations, to disorganizing half a city, to risking a kind of civil war? Whatever were your objects, were they that?”
Barker and Wilson looked at him admiringly; the King more admiringly still.
“Provost Buck,” said Auberon, “you speak in public uncommonly well. I give you your point with the magnanimity of an artist. My scheme did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne. Alas! would that my poetic power had been great enough.”
“I thank your Majesty,” said Buck, courteously but quickly. “Your Majesty’s statements are always clear and studied: therefore I may draw a deduction. As the scheme, whatever it was, on which you set your heart did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne, it will survive his removal. Why not let us clear away this particular Pump Street, which does interfere with our plans, and which does not, by your Majesty’s own statement, interfere with yours.”
“Caught out!” said the King, enthusiastically and quite impersonally, as if he were watching a cricket match.
“This man Wayne,” continued Buck, “would be shut up by any doctors in England. But we only ask to have it put before them. Meanwhile no one’s interests, not even in all probability his own, can be really damaged by going on with the improvements in Notting Hill. Not our interests, of course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of ten years. Not the interest of Notting Hill, for nearly all its educated inhabitants desire the change. Not the interests of your Majesty, for you say, with characteristic sense, that you never contemplated the rise of the lunatic at all. Not, as I say, his own interests, for the man has a kind heart and many talents, and a couple of good doctors would probably put him righter than all the free cities and sacred mountains in creation. I therefore assume, if I may use so bold a word, that your Majesty will not offer any obstacle to our proceeding with the improvements.”
«Questo gentilissimo discorso del Prevosto di Notting Hill», cominciò Buck, piacevolmente, «mi pare mostri che siamo finalmente giunti a un rapporto amichevole. Ora venite, Mr. Wayne. Vi sono state offerte cinquecento sterline per una proprietà che ammettete non valere cento. Ebbene, io sono un uomo ricco e non voglio farmi superare in generosità. Diciamo millecinquecento sterline e facciamola finita. E stringiamoci la mano.» E si alzò, raggiante e ridente.
«Millecinquecento sterline», sussurrò Mr. Wilson di Bayswater; «possiamo permetterci millecinquecento sterline?»
«Ci metto la faccia io», disse Buck di cuore. «Mr. Wayne è un gentiluomo e ha parlato in mio favore. Perciò suppongo che le trattative siano concluse.»
Wayne si inchinò.
«Sono davvero concluse. Mi dispiace di non potervi vendere la proprietà.»
«Cosa?» esclamò Mr. Barker, balzando in piedi.
«Mr. Buck ha parlato correttamente», disse il Re.
«L’ho fatto, l’ho fatto», esclamò Buck, balzando anch’egli in piedi; «ho detto…»
«Mr. Buck ha parlato correttamente», disse il Re; «le trattative sono concluse.»
Tutti gli uomini al tavolo si alzarono in piedi; Wayne solo si alzò senza eccitazione.
«Ho dunque», disse, «il permesso di vostra Maestà di andarmene? Ho dato la mia ultima risposta.»
«L’avete», disse Auberon, sorridendo, ma senza sollevare gli occhi dal tavolo. E in mezzo a un silenzio di morte il Prevosto di Notting Hill uscì dalla sala.
«Ebbene?» disse Wilson, voltandosi verso Barker, «ebbene?»
Barker scosse il capo disperatamente.
«Quell’uomo dovrebbe stare in manicomio», disse. «Ma una cosa è chiara: non c’è bisogno di preoccuparci oltre di lui. L’uomo può essere trattato da pazzo.»
«Certo», disse Buck, voltandosi verso di lui con cupa decisione. «Avete perfettamente ragione, Barker. È un tipo abbastanza per bene, ma può essere trattato da pazzo. Mettiamola in termini semplici. Andate a dire a dodici uomini qualsiasi in una città qualsiasi, andate a dire a un medico qualsiasi in una città qualsiasi, che c’è un uomo cui sono state offerte millecinquecento sterline per una cosa che comunemente venderebbe per quattrocento, e che, richiesto di una ragione per non accettarle, adduce l’inviolata santità di Notting Hill e la chiama la Santa Montagna. Cosa direbbero? Cosa possiamo avere di più dalla nostra parte del buon senso di tutti? Su cos’altro poggiano tutte le leggi? Vi dirò, Barker, cosa c’è di meglio di ogni ulteriore discussione. Mandiamo sul posto degli operai a demolire Pump Street. E se il vecchio Wayne dice una parola, arrestatelo come lunatico. Ecco tutto.»
Gli occhi di Barker si accesero.
«Vi ho sempre considerato, Buck, se non vi dispiace che lo dica, come un uomo di grande forza. Vi seguirò.»
«Così, naturalmente, farò anch’io», disse Wilson.
Buck si alzò di nuovo d’impeto.
«Vostra Maestà», disse, raggiante di popolarità, «supplico vostra Maestà di considerare favorevolmente la proposta cui ci siamo impegnati. La clemenza di vostra Maestà, le nostre stesse offerte, sono cadute invano su quell’uomo straordinario. Può aver ragione. Può essere Dio. Può essere il diavolo. Ma noi riteniamo, a fini pratici, più probabile che sia fuori di senno. A meno che non si agisca su tale presupposto, tutte le faccende umane andrebbero in pezzi. Noi agiamo su di esso, e proponiamo di iniziare subito le operazioni a Notting Hill.»
Il Re si appoggiò allo schienale della sedia.
«La Carta delle Città…» disse con una ricca intonazione.
Ma Buck, essendo finalmente serio, era anche cauto, e non commise di nuovo l’errore dell’irriverenza.
«Vostra Maestà», disse, inchinandosi, «non sono qui per dire una parola contro alcunché vostra Maestà abbia detto o fatto. Voi siete un uomo di gran lunga più istruito di me, e senza dubbio c’erano ragioni, su basi intellettuali, per quei procedimenti. Ma posso chiedervi e appellarmi al vostro comune buon carattere per una sincera risposta? Quando stendeste la Carta delle Città, contemplaste l’ascesa di un uomo come Adam Wayne? Vi aspettavate che la Carta… fosse essa un esperimento, o un progetto di decorazione, o uno scherzo… potesse mai davvero arrivare a questo… a fermare un vasto piano di ordinari affari, a chiudere una strada, a rovinare le possibilità di vetture, omnibus, stazioni ferroviarie, a disorganizzare mezza città, a rischiare una specie di guerra civile? Quali che fossero i vostri scopi, erano forse questi?»
Barker e Wilson lo guardarono con ammirazione; il Re ancor più ammirato.
«Prevosto Buck», disse Auberon, «voi parlate in pubblico straordinariamente bene. Vi concedo il vostro punto con la magnanimità di un artista. Il mio progetto non includeva la comparsa di Mr. Wayne. Ahimè! avesse la mia potenza poetica avuto forza sufficiente.»
«Ringrazio vostra Maestà», disse Buck, cortese ma rapido. «Le affermazioni di vostra Maestà sono sempre chiare e ponderate: perciò posso trarre una deduzione. Poiché il progetto, qualunque fosse, su cui poneste il cuore non includeva la comparsa di Mr. Wayne, esso sopravvivrà alla sua rimozione. Perché non lasciarci sgombrare questa particolare Pump Street, che interferisce coi nostri piani, e che non interferisce, per stessa dichiarazione di vostra Maestà, coi vostri.»
«In fallo!» disse il Re, con entusiasmo e in modo del tutto impersonale, come se assistesse a una partita di cricket.
«Quest’uomo Wayne», proseguì Buck, «sarebbe rinchiuso da qualsiasi medico in Inghilterra. Ma noi chiediamo solo che la cosa venga sottoposta a loro. Nel frattempo gli interessi di nessuno, nemmeno con ogni probabilità i suoi, possono essere davvero danneggiati proseguendo coi miglioramenti a Notting Hill. Non i nostri interessi, naturalmente, poiché è stato il duro e quieto lavoro di dieci anni. Non l’interesse di Notting Hill, poiché quasi tutti i suoi abitanti colti desiderano il cambiamento. Non gli interessi di vostra Maestà, poiché voi dite, con caratteristico buon senso, di non aver mai contemplato affatto l’ascesa del lunatico. Non, come dico, i suoi stessi interessi, poiché l’uomo ha un cuore gentile e molti talenti, e un paio di buoni medici probabilmente lo rimetterebbero in sesto meglio di tutte le libere città e le sacre montagne del creato. Assumo pertanto, se posso usare una parola così audace, che vostra Maestà non porrà alcun ostacolo al nostro procedere coi miglioramenti.»
And Mr. Buck sat down amid subdued but excited applause among the allies.
“Mr. Buck,” said the King, “I beg your pardon, for a number of beautiful and sacred thoughts, in which you were generally classified as a fool. But there is another thing to be considered. Suppose you send in your workmen, and Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed, but of which I am sorry to say, I think him quite capable…knocks their teeth out.”
“I have thought of that, your Majesty,” said Mr. Buck, easily, “and I think it can simply be guarded against. Let us send in a strong guard of say a hundred men…a hundred Of the North Kensington Halberdiers” (he smiled grimly), “of whom your Majesty is so fond. Or say…a hundred and fifty. The whole population of Pump Street, I fancy, is only about a hundred.”
“Still they might stand together and lick you,” said the King, dubiously.
“Then say two hundred,” said Buck, gaily.
“It might happen,” said the King, restlessly, “that one Notting Hiller fought better than two, North Kensingtons.”
“It might,” said Buck, coolly; “then say two hundred and fifty.”
The King bit his lip.
“And if they are beaten, too,” he said viciously.
“Your Majesty,” said Buck, and leaned back easily in his chair. “Suppose they are. If anything be clear, it is clear that all fighting matters are mere matters of arithmetic. Here we have a hundred and fifty say of Notting Hill soldiers. Or say two hundred. If one of them can fight two of us…we can send in, not four hundred, but six hundred, and smash him. That is all. It is out of all immediate probability that one of them could fight four of us. So what I say is this. Run no risks. Finish it at once. Send in eight hundred men and smash him…smash him almost without seeing him. And go on with the improvements.”
And Mr. Buck pulled out a bandanna and blew his nose.
“Do you know, Mr. Buck,” said the King, staring gloomily at the table, “the admirable clearness of your reason produces in my mind a sentiment which I trust I shall not offend you by describing as an aspiration to punch your head. You irritate me sublimely. What can it be in me? Is it the relic of a moral sense?”
“But your Majesty,” said Barker, eagerly and suavely, “does not refuse our proposals?”
“My dear Barker, your proposals are as damnable as your manners. I want to have nothing to do with them. Suppose I stopped them altogether. What would happen?”
Barker answered in a very low voice:
“Revolution.”
The King glanced quickly at the men around the table. They were all looking down silently: their brows were red.
He rose with a startling suddenness, and an unusual pallor.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “you have overruled me. Therefore I can speak plainly. I think Adam Wayne, who is as mad as a hatter, worth more than a million of you. But you have the force, and, I admit, the common sense, and he is lost. Take your eight hundred halberdiers and smash him. It would be more sportsmanlike to take two hundred.”
“More sportsmanlike,” said Buck, grimly, “but a great deal less humane. We are not artists, and streets purple with gore do not catch our eye in the right way.”
“It is pitiful,” said Auberon. “With five or six times their number there will be no fight at all.”
“I hope not,” said Buck, rising and adjusting his gloves. “We desire no fight, your Majesty. We are peaceable business men.”
“Well,” said the King, wearily, “the conference is at an end at last.”
And he went out of the room before any one else could stir.
… . .
Forty workmen, a hundred Bayswater Halberdiers, two hundred from South, and three from North Kensington, assembled at the foot of Holland Walk and marched up it, under the general direction of Barker, who looked flushed and happy in full dress. At the end of the procession a small and sulky figure lingered like an urchin. It was the King.
“Barker,” he said at length, appealingly, “you are an old friend of mine…you understand my hobbies as I understand yours. Why can’t you let it alone? I hoped that such fun might come out of this Wayne business. Why can’t you let it alone? It doesn’t really so much matter to you…what’s a road or so? For me it’s the one joke that may save me from pessimism. Take fewer men and give me an hour’s fun. Really and truly, James, if you collected coins or humming-birds, and I could buy one with the price of your road, I would buy it. I collect incidents…those rare, those precious things. Let me have one. Pay a few pounds for it. Give these Notting Hillers a chance. Let them alone.”
“Auberon,” said Barker, kindly, forgetting all royal titles in a rare moment of sincerity, “I do feel what you mean. I have had moments when these hobbies have hit me. I have had moments when I have sympathized with your humours. I have had moments, though you may not easily believe it, when I have sympathized with the madness of Adam Wayne. But the world, Auberon, the real world, is not run on these hobbies. It goes on great brutal wheels of facts…wheels on which you are the butterfly. And Wayne is the fly on the wheel.”
Auberon’s eyes looked frankly at the other’s.
“Thank you, James; what you say is true. It is only a parenthetical consolation to me to compare the intelligence of flies, somewhat favourably with the intelligence of wheels. But it is the nature of flies to die soon, and the nature of wheels to go on for ever. Go on with the wheel. Good-bye, old man.”
And James Barker went on, laughing, with a high colour, slapping his bamboo on his leg.
The King watched the tail of the retreating regiment with a look of genuine depression, which made him seem more like a baby than ever. Then he swung round and struck his hands together.
“In a world without humour,” he said, “the only thing to do is to eat. And how perfect an exception! How can these people strike dignified attitudes, and pretend that things matter, when the total ludicrousness of life is proved by the very method by which it is supported? A man strikes the lyre, and says, ‘Life is real, life is earnest,’ and then goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into a hole in his head. I think Nature was indeed a little broad in her humour in these matters. But we all fall back on the pantomime, as I have in this municipal affair. Nature has her farces, like, the act of eating or the shape of the kangaroo, for the more brutal appetite. She keeps her stars and mountains for those who can appreciate something more subtly ridiculous.” He turned to his equerry. “But, as I said ‘eating,’ let us have a picnic like two nice little children. Just run and bring me a table and a dozen courses or so, and plenty of champagne, and under these swinging boughs, Bowler, we will return to Nature.”
E Mr. Buck si sedette in mezzo a un applauso sommesso ma eccitato tra gli alleati.
«Mr. Buck», disse il Re, «vi chiedo scusa per un certo numero di pensieri belli e sacri, nei quali voi eravate generalmente classificato come uno sciocco. Ma c’è un’altra cosa da considerare. Supponete di mandare i vostri operai, e Mr. Wayne faccia una cosa deprecabile, sì, ma di cui, mi dispiace dirlo, lo credo del tutto capace… spacchi loro i denti.»
«Ci ho pensato, vostra Maestà», disse Mr. Buck, con disinvoltura, «e credo si possa semplicemente prevenire. Mandiamo una forte guardia di, diciamo, cento uomini… cento degli Alabardieri di North Kensington» (sorrise cupamente), «di cui vostra Maestà è tanto affezionata. O diciamo… centocinquanta. L’intera popolazione di Pump Street, immagino, è solo di un centinaio.»
«Eppure potrebbero far fronte comune e battervi», disse il Re, dubbioso.
«Allora diciamo duecento», disse Buck, allegramente.
«Potrebbe accadere», disse il Re, irrequieto, «che un abitante di Notting Hill combatta meglio di due di North Kensington.»
«Potrebbe», disse Buck, con freddezza; «allora diciamo duecentocinquanta.»
Il Re si morse il labbro.
«E se sono battuti anche quelli», disse con astio.
«Vostra Maestà», disse Buck, e si appoggiò comodamente allo schienale della sedia. «Supponiamo che lo siano. Se qualcosa è chiaro, è chiaro che tutte le questioni di combattimento sono mere questioni di aritmetica. Qui abbiamo, diciamo, centocinquanta soldati di Notting Hill. O diciamo duecento. Se uno di loro può combatterne due dei nostri… possiamo mandarne, non quattrocento, ma seicento, e schiacciarlo. Ecco tutto. È fuori da ogni immediata probabilità che uno di loro possa combatterne quattro dei nostri. Perciò quel che dico è questo. Non corriamo rischi. Finiamola subito. Mandiamo ottocento uomini e schiacciamolo… schiacciamolo quasi senza vederlo. E proseguiamo coi miglioramenti.»
E Mr. Buck tirò fuori un fazzoletto a colori e si soffiò il naso.
«Sapete, Mr. Buck», disse il Re, fissando cupamente il tavolo, «l’ammirevole chiarezza del vostro ragionamento produce nella mia mente un sentimento che confido di non offendervi descrivendo come un’aspirazione a prendervi a pugni in testa. Voi mi irritate in modo sublime. Cosa può essere in me? È il residuo di un senso morale?»
«Ma vostra Maestà», disse Barker, con premura e blandizia, «non rifiuta le nostre proposte?»
«Mio caro Barker, le vostre proposte sono dannabili quanto le vostre maniere. Non voglio avere nulla a che farci. Supponete che le fermassi del tutto. Cosa accadrebbe?»
Barker rispose con voce bassissima:
«Rivoluzione.»
Il Re lanciò un rapido sguardo agli uomini attorno al tavolo. Guardavano tutti in basso in silenzio: avevano le fronti arrossate.
Si alzò con sorprendente subitaneità, e con un insolito pallore.
«Signori», disse, «mi avete messo in minoranza. Perciò posso parlare chiaro. Io ritengo Adam Wayne, che è matto da legare, valere più di un milione di voi. Ma voi avete la forza e, lo ammetto, il buon senso, ed egli è perduto. Prendete i vostri ottocento alabardieri e schiacciatelo. Sarebbe più sportivo prenderne duecento.»
«Più sportivo», disse Buck, cupamente, «ma molto meno umano. Non siamo artisti, e le strade purpuree di sangue non colpiscono il nostro occhio nel modo giusto.»
«È penoso», disse Auberon. «Con cinque o sei volte il loro numero non ci sarà combattimento affatto.»
«Spero di no», disse Buck, alzandosi e aggiustandosi i guanti. «Non desideriamo combattimenti, vostra Maestà. Siamo pacifici uomini d’affari.»
«Ebbene», disse il Re, stancamente, «la conferenza è finalmente conclusa.»
E uscì dalla sala prima che chiunque altro potesse muoversi.
… . .
Quaranta operai, cento Alabardieri di Bayswater, duecento del South e trecento del North Kensington, si radunarono ai piedi di Holland Walk e la risalirono in marcia, sotto la direzione generale di Barker, che appariva accaldato e felice in alta uniforme. In coda al corteo una piccola e imbronciata figura indugiava come un monello. Era il Re.
«Barker», disse infine, in tono supplichevole, «tu sei un mio vecchio amico… tu capisci i miei passatempi come io capisco i tuoi. Perché non puoi lasciar perdere? Speravo che da questa faccenda di Wayne potesse venire tanto spasso. Perché non puoi lasciar perdere? In fondo non ti importa poi molto… cos’è una strada più o meno? Per me è l’unico scherzo che possa salvarmi dal pessimismo. Prendi meno uomini e concedimi un’ora di spasso. Davvero e sinceramente, James, se tu collezionassi monete o colibrì, e io potessi comprarne uno col prezzo della tua strada, lo comprerei. Io colleziono episodi… quelle cose rare, quelle cose preziose. Lasciamene avere uno. Paga qualche sterlina per esso. Dai a questi abitanti di Notting Hill una possibilità. Lasciali in pace.»
«Auberon», disse Barker, con gentilezza, dimenticando tutti i titoli regali in un raro momento di sincerità, «sento davvero ciò che intendi. Ho avuto momenti in cui questi passatempi mi hanno colpito. Ho avuto momenti in cui ho simpatizzato coi tuoi umori. Ho avuto momenti, per quanto tu possa non crederlo facilmente, in cui ho simpatizzato con la follia di Adam Wayne. Ma il mondo, Auberon, il mondo reale, non è governato da questi passatempi. Va avanti su grandi brutali ruote di fatti… ruote sulle quali tu sei la farfalla. E Wayne è la mosca sulla ruota.»
Gli occhi di Auberon guardarono con franchezza quelli dell’altro.
«Grazie, James; ciò che dici è vero. È solo una parentetica consolazione per me confrontare l’intelligenza delle mosche, in modo alquanto favorevole, con l’intelligenza delle ruote. Ma è natura delle mosche morir presto, e natura delle ruote andare avanti per sempre. Va’ avanti con la ruota. Addio, vecchio mio.»
E James Barker proseguì, ridendo, col colorito acceso, battendosi il bambù sulla gamba.
Il Re osservò la coda del reggimento che si ritirava con uno sguardo di genuina depressione, che lo faceva sembrare più che mai un bambino. Poi si voltò di scatto e batté le mani insieme.
«In un mondo senza umorismo», disse, «l’unica cosa da fare è mangiare. E quale perfetta eccezione! Come possono queste persone assumere pose dignitose, e fingere che le cose importino, quando la totale ridicolaggine della vita è provata proprio dal metodo con cui essa si sostiene? Un uomo pizzica la lira e dice: ‘La vita è reale, la vita è seria’, e poi entra in una stanza e si ficca sostanze estranee in un buco nella testa. Penso che la Natura sia stata davvero un po’ spinta nel suo umorismo in queste faccende. Ma tutti ripieghiamo sulla pantomima, come ho fatto io in questa faccenda municipale. La Natura ha le sue farse, come l’atto di mangiare o la forma del canguro, per l’appetito più brutale. Riserba le sue stelle e le sue montagne per coloro che sanno apprezzare qualcosa di più sottilmente ridicolo.» Si volse al suo scudiero. «Ma, poiché ho detto ‘mangiare’, facciamo un picnic come due bravi bambini. Corri a portarmi una tavola e una dozzina di portate all’incirca, e champagne in abbondanza, e sotto questi rami ondeggianti, Bowler, torneremo alla Natura.»
It took about an hour to erect in Holland Lane the monarch’s simple repast, during which time he walked up and down and whistled, but still with an unaffected air of gloom. He had really been done out of a pleasure he had promised himself, and had that empty and sickened feeling which a child has when disappointed of a pantomime. When he and the equerry had sat down, however, and consumed a fair amount of dry champagne, his spirits began mildly to revive.
“Things take too long in this world,” he said. “I detest all this Barkerian business about evolution and the gradual modification of things. I wish the world had been made in six days, and knocked to pieces again in six more. And I wish I had done it. The joke’s good enough in a broad way, sun and moon and the image of God and all that, but they keep it up so damnably long. Did you ever long for a miracle, Bowler?”
“No, sir,” said Bowler, who was an evolutionist, and had been carefully brought up.
“Then I have,” answered the King. “I have walked along a street with the best cigar in the cosmos in my mouth, and more Burgundy inside me than you ever saw in your life, and longed that the lamp-post would turn into an elephant to save me from the hell of blank existence. Take my word for it, my evolutionary Bowler, don’t you believe people when they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed in miracles because they were ignorant. They did it because they were wise, filthily, vilely wise…too wise to eat or sleep or put on their boots with patience. This seems delightfully like a new theory of the origin of Christianity, which would itself be a thing of no mean absurdity. Take some more wine.”
The wind blew round them as they sat at their little table, with its white cloth and bright wine-cups, and flung the tree-tops of Holland Park against each other, but the sun was in that strong temper which turns green into gold. The King pushed away his plate, lit a cigar slowly, and went on:
“Yesterday I thought that something next door to a really entertaining miracle might happen to me before I went to amuse the worms. To see that red-haired maniac waving a great sword and making speeches to his incomparable followers, would have been a glimpse of that Land of Youth from which the Fates shut us out. I had planned some quite delightful things. A Congress of Knightsbridge with a treaty, and myself in the chair, and perhaps a Roman triumph, with jolly old Barker led in chains. And now these wretched prigs have gone and stamped out the exquisite Mr. Wayne altogether, and I suppose they will put him in a private asylum somewhere in their damned humane way. Think of the treasures daily poured out to his unappreciative keeper! I wonder whether they would let me be his keeper. But life is a vale. Never forget at any moment of your existence to regard it in the light of a vale. This graceful habit, if not acquired in youth…”
The King stopped, with his cigar lifted, for there had slid into his eyes the startled look of a man listening. He did not move for a few moments; then he turned his head sharply towards the high, thin, and lath-like paling which fenced certain long gardens and similar spaces from the lane. From behind it there was coming a curious scrambling and scraping noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box of thin wood. The King threw away his cigar and jumped on to the table. From this position he saw a pair of hands hanging with a hungry clutch on the top of the fence. Then the hands quivered with a convulsive effort, and a head shot up between them…the head of one of the Bayswater Town Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swung himself over, and fell on the other side on his face, and groaned openly and without ceasing. The next moment the thin, taut wood of the fence was struck as by a bullet, so that it reverberated like a drum, and over it came tearing and cursing, with torn clothes and broken nails and bleeding faces, twenty men at one rush. The King sprang five feet clear off the table on to the ground. The moment after the table was flung over, sending bottles and glasses flying, and the debris was literally swept along the ground by that stream of men pouring past, arid Bowler was borne along with them, as the King said in his famous newspaper article, “like a captured bride.” The great fence swung and split under the load of climbers that still scaled and cleared it. Tremendous gaps were torn in it by this living artillery; and through them the King could see more and more frantic faces, as in a dream, and more and more men running. They were as miscellaneous as if some one had taken the lid off a human dustbin. Some were untouched, some were slashed and battered and bloody, some were splendidly dressed, some tattered and half-naked, some were in the fantastic garb of the burlesque cities, some in the dullest modern dress. The King stared at all of them, but none of them looked at the King. Suddenly he stepped forward.
“Barker,” he said, “what is all this?”
“Beaten,” said the politician “beaten all to hell!” And he plunged past with nostrils shaking like a horse’s, and more and more men plunged after him.
Almost as he spoke, the last standing strip of fence bowed and snapped, flinging, as from a catapult, a new figure upon the road. He wore the flaming red of the halberdiers of Notting Hill, and on his weapon there was blood, and in his face victory. In another moment masses of red glowed through the gaps of the fence, and the pursuers, with their halberds, came pouring down the lane. Pursued and pursuers alike swept by the little figure with the owlish eyes, who had not taken his hands out of his pockets.
The King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man caught in a torrent…the feeling of men eddying by. Then something happened which he was never able afterwards to describe, and which we cannot describe for him. Suddenly in the dark entrance, between the broken gates of a garden, there appeared framed a flaming figure.
Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his mane like a lion’s, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of his office flapping round him like the red wings of an archangel. And the King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The great green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind. The sword seemed made for the sunlight. The preposterous masquerade, born of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This was the normal, this was sanity, this was nature; and he himself, with his rationality and his detachment and his black frock-coat, he was the exception and the accident…a blot of black upon a world of crimson and gold.
Ci volle circa un’ora per allestire in Holland Lane il semplice desinare del monarca, durante il quale tempo egli passeggiò su e giù e fischiettò, ma sempre con un’aria non simulata di sconforto. Era stato davvero privato di un piacere che si era promesso, e aveva quel senso vuoto e nauseato che ha un bambino quando resta deluso di una pantomima. Quando però lui e lo scudiero si furono seduti, e ebbero consumato una discreta quantità di champagne secco, il suo spirito cominciò mitemente a rianimarsi.
«Le cose durano troppo a lungo in questo mondo», disse. «Detesto tutta questa faccenda alla Barker sull’evoluzione e la graduale modificazione delle cose. Vorrei che il mondo fosse stato fatto in sei giorni, e mandato in pezzi di nuovo in altri sei. E vorrei averlo fatto io. Lo scherzo è abbastanza buono in senso lato, il sole e la luna e l’immagine di Dio e tutto il resto, ma lo tirano avanti così dannatamente a lungo. Hai mai desiderato un miracolo, Bowler?»
«No, signore», disse Bowler, che era evoluzionista, ed era stato allevato con cura.
«Io sì, invece», rispose il Re. «Ho camminato lungo una strada col miglior sigaro del cosmo in bocca, e più Borgogna in corpo di quanto tu ne abbia mai visto in vita tua, e ho desiderato che il lampione si mutasse in un elefante per salvarmi dall’inferno della vuota esistenza. Fidati della mia parola, mio evoluzionistico Bowler, non credere alla gente quando ti dice che gli uomini cercavano un segno, e credevano nei miracoli perché erano ignoranti. Lo facevano perché erano saggi, sordidamente, vilmente saggi… troppo saggi per mangiare o dormire o infilarsi gli stivali con pazienza. Questa sembra deliziosamente una nuova teoria dell’origine del Cristianesimo, che sarebbe essa stessa una cosa di non poca assurdità. Prendi ancora un po’ di vino.»
Il vento soffiava attorno a loro mentre sedevano al loro tavolino, con la sua tovaglia bianca e i luminosi calici di vino, e scagliava le cime degli alberi di Holland Park le une contro le altre, ma il sole era in quell’umore forte che muta il verde in oro. Il Re scostò il piatto, accese lentamente un sigaro, e proseguì:
«Ieri pensavo che qualcosa di prossimo a un miracolo davvero divertente potesse capitarmi prima che andassi a rallegrare i vermi. Vedere quel maniaco dai capelli rossi agitare una grande spada e tenere discorsi ai suoi incomparabili seguaci sarebbe stato un barlume di quella Terra della Giovinezza da cui i Fati ci escludono. Avevo pianificato alcune cose del tutto deliziose. Un Congresso di Knightsbridge con un trattato, e me stesso alla presidenza, e forse un trionfo romano, con l’allegro vecchio Barker condotto in catene. E ora questi miserabili pedanti sono andati e hanno cancellato del tutto lo squisito Mr. Wayne, e suppongo che lo metteranno in un manicomio privato da qualche parte nella loro maledetta maniera umanitaria. Pensa ai tesori quotidianamente riversati sul suo guardiano incapace di apprezzarli! Mi chiedo se lascerebbero fare a me il suo guardiano. Ma la vita è una valle. Non dimenticare mai in nessun momento della tua esistenza di considerarla alla luce di una valle. Questa graziosa abitudine, se non acquisita in gioventù…»
Il Re si arrestò, col sigaro sollevato, poiché gli era scivolato negli occhi lo sguardo trasalito di un uomo in ascolto. Non si mosse per qualche istante; poi volse il capo di scatto verso l’alto steccato sottile e simile a un’assicella che separava certi lunghi giardini e spazi simili dalla stradina. Da dietro veniva un curioso rumore di arrampicamento e di raschiamento, come di una cosa disperata imprigionata in questa scatola di legno sottile. Il Re gettò via il sigaro e balzò sulla tavola. Da questa posizione vide un paio di mani appese con presa affamata alla cima dello steccato. Poi le mani tremarono in uno sforzo convulso, e una testa spuntò tra esse… la testa di uno del Consiglio comunale di Bayswater, gli occhi e i favoriti stravolti dalla paura. Si issò oltre, e cadde dall’altro lato bocconi, e gemette apertamente e senza tregua. L’istante dopo il legno sottile e teso dello steccato fu colpito come da una pallottola, sì che riverberò come un tamburo, e al di sopra vennero, lacerando e imprecando, con abiti strappati e unghie rotte e volti sanguinanti, venti uomini in un solo assalto. Il Re balzò dalla tavola a terra, a un metro e mezzo di distanza. L’istante dopo la tavola fu rovesciata, mandando bottiglie e bicchieri per aria, e i rottami furono letteralmente spazzati lungo il suolo da quel torrente di uomini che passavano precipitosi, e Bowler fu trascinato via con essi, come disse il Re nel suo famoso articolo di giornale, «come una sposa rapita». Il grande steccato ondeggiava e si spaccava sotto il carico degli arrampicatori che ancora lo scalavano e lo superavano. Enormi squarci vi venivano aperti da questa artiglieria vivente; e attraverso di essi il Re poteva vedere volti sempre più frenetici, come in un sogno, e sempre più uomini che correvano. Erano eterogenei come se qualcuno avesse tolto il coperchio a una pattumiera umana. Alcuni erano intatti, alcuni erano squarciati e ammaccati e insanguinati, alcuni erano splendidamente vestiti, alcuni cenciosi e seminudi, alcuni erano nel fantastico abbigliamento delle città burlesche, alcuni nel più scialbo abito moderno. Il Re li fissava tutti, ma nessuno di loro guardava il Re. D’improvviso si fece avanti.
«Barker», disse, «cos’è tutto questo?»
«Battuti», disse il politico, «battuti fino all’inferno!» E si precipitò oltre con le narici frementi come quelle di un cavallo, e sempre più uomini si precipitarono dietro di lui.
Quasi mentre parlava, l’ultima striscia di steccato ancora in piedi si piegò e si spezzò, scagliando, come da una catapulta, una nuova figura sulla strada. Indossava il rosso fiammante degli alabardieri di Notting Hill, e sulla sua arma c’era sangue, e sul suo volto la vittoria. Un istante dopo, masse di rosso rifulsero attraverso gli squarci dello steccato, e gli inseguitori, con le loro alabarde, vennero riversandosi giù per la stradina. Inseguiti e inseguitori insieme sfrecciarono accanto alla piccola figura dagli occhi di gufo, che non aveva tolto le mani di tasca.
Il Re aveva ancora poco più della confusa sensazione di un uomo preso in un torrente… la sensazione di uomini che vorticavano intorno. Poi accadde qualcosa che egli non fu mai in grado di descrivere in seguito, e che noi non possiamo descrivere per lui. D’improvviso nell’oscuro ingresso, tra i cancelli infranti di un giardino, apparve, incorniciata, una figura fiammeggiante.
Adam Wayne, il conquistatore, col volto rovesciato all’indietro, e la criniera come quella di un leone, stava con la punta della sua grande spada rivolta verso l’alto, la rossa veste della sua carica sbattendogli intorno come le rosse ali di un arcangelo. E il Re vide, non seppe come, qualcosa di nuovo e travolgente. I grandi alberi verdi e le grandi vesti rosse ondeggiavano insieme nel vento. La spada pareva fatta per la luce del sole. La grottesca mascherata, nata dalla sua stessa beffa, torreggiava sopra di lui e abbracciava il mondo. Questo era il normale, questa era la ragione, questa era la natura; ed egli stesso, con la sua razionalità e il suo distacco e la sua nera redingote, era l’eccezione e l’accidente… una macchia di nero su un mondo di cremisi e d’oro.
BOOK IV CHAPTER I
THE BATTLE OF THE LAMPS
MR. BUCK, who, though retired, frequently went down to his big drapery stores in Kensington High Street, was locking up those premises, being the last to leave. It was a wonderful evening of green and gold, but that did not trouble him very much. If you had pointed it out, he would have agreed seriously, for the rich always desire to be artistic.
He stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light coat, and blowing great clouds from his cigar, when a figure dashed up to him in another yellow overcoat, but unbuttoned and flying behind him.
“Hullo, Barker!” said the draper. “Any of our summer articles? You’re too late. Factory Acts, Barker. Humanity and progress, my boy.”
“Oh, don’t chatter,” cried Barker, stamping. “We’ve been beaten.”
“Beaten…by what?” asked Buck, mystified.
“By Wayne.”
Buck looked at Barker’s fierce white face for the first time, as it gleamed in the lamplight.
“Come and have a drink,” he said.
They adjourned to a cushioned and glaring buffet, and Buck established himself slowly and lazily in a seat, and pulled out his cigar-case.
“Have a smoke,” he said.
Barker was still standing, and on the fret, but after a moment’s hesitation, he sat down, as if he might spring up again the next minute. They ordered drinks in silence.
“How did it happen?” asked Buck, turning his big bold eyes on him.
“How the devil do I know?” cried Barker. “It happened like…like a dream. How can two hundred men beat six hundred? How can they?”
“Well,” said Buck, coolly. “How did they? You ought to know.”
“I don’t know. I can’t describe,” said the other, drumming on the table. “It seemed like this. We were six hundred and marched with those damned poleaxes of Auberon’s…the only weapons we’ve got. We marched two abreast. We went up to Holland Walk, between the high palings which seemed to me to go straight as an arrow for Pump Street. I was near the tail of the line and it was a long one. When the end of it was still between the high palings, the head of the line was already crossing Holland Park Avenue. Then the head plunged into the network of narrow streets on the other side, and the tail and myself came out on the great crossing. When we also had reached northern side and turned up a small street that points, crookedly as it were, towards Pump Street, the whole thing felt different. The street dodged and bent so much that the head of our line seemed lost altogether: it might as well have been in North America. And all this time we hadn’t seen a soul.”
Buck, who was idly dabbing the ash of his cigar on the ash-tray, began to move it deliberately over the table, making feathery grey lines, a kind of map.
“But though the little streets were all deserted (which got a trifle on my nerves), as we got deeper and deeper into them, a thing began to happen that I couldn’t understand. Sometimes a long way ahead…three turns or corners ahead, as it were…there broke suddenly a sort of noise, clattering, and confused cries, and then stopped. Then, when it happened, something, I can’t describe it…a kind of shake or stagger went down the line, as if the line were a live thing, whose head had been struck, or had been an electric cord. None of us knew why we were moving, but we moved and jostled. Then we recovered, and went on through the little dirty streets, round corners, and up twisted ways. The little crooked streets began to give me a feeling I can’t explain…as if it were a dream. I felt as if things had lost their reason, and we should never get out of the maze. Odd to hear me talk like that, isn’t it? The streets were quite well-known streets, all down on the map. But the fact remains. I wasn’t afraid of something happening. I was afraid of nothing ever happening…nothing ever happening for all God’s eternity.”
He drained his glass and called for more whisky. He drank it and went on.
“And then something did happen. Buck, it’s the solemn truth, that nothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing had ever happened to me in my life.”
“Nothing ever happened!” said Buck, staring. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing has ever happened,” repeated Barker, with a morbid obstinacy. “You don’t know what a thing happening means? You sit in your office expecting customers, and customers come; you walk in the street expecting friends, and friends meet you; you want a drink and get it; you feel inclined for a bet and make it. You expect either to win or lose, and you do either one or the other. But things happening!” and he shuddered ungovernably.
“Go on,” said Buck, shortly. “Get on.”
“As we walked wearily round the corners, something happened. When something happens, it happens first, and you see it afterwards. It happens of itself, and you have nothing to do with it. It proves a dreadful thing…that there are other things besides one’s self. I can only put it in this way. We went round one turning, two turnings, three turnings, four turnings, five. Then I lifted myself slowly up from the gutter where I had been shot half senseless, and was beaten down again by living men crashing on top of me, and the world was full of roaring, and big men rolling about like ninepins.”
Buck looked at his map with knitted brows.
“Was that Portobello Road?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Barker. “Yes; Portobello Road…I saw it afterwards; but, my God…what a place it was! Buck, have you ever stood and let a six foot of a man lash and lash at your head with six feet of pole with six pounds of steel at the end? Because, when you have had that experience, as Walt Whitman says, ‘you re-examine philosophies and religions.’ ”
“I have no doubt,” said Buck. “If that was Portobello Road, don’t you see what happened?”
“I know what happened exceedingly well. I was knocked down four times; an experience which, as I say, has an effect on the mental attitude. And another thing happened, too. I knocked down two men. After the fourth fall (there was not much bloodshed…more brutal rushing and throwing…for nobody could use their weapons), after the fourth fall, I say, I got up like a devil, and I tore a poleaxe out of a man’s hand and struck where I saw the scarlet of Wayne’s fellows, struck again and again. Two of them went over, bleeding oh the stones, thank God…and I laughed and found myself sprawling in the gutter again, and got up again, and struck again, and broke my halberd to pieces. I hurt a man’s head, though.”
LIBRO IV CAPITOLO I
LA BATTAGLIA DEI LAMPIONI
IL SIGNOR BUCK, il quale, benché ritirato, si recava spesso ai suoi grandi magazzini di tessuti in Kensington High Street, stava chiudendo quei locali, essendo l’ultimo ad andarsene. Era una meravigliosa serata di verde e d’oro, ma ciò non lo turbava granché. Se glielo aveste fatto notare, avrebbe convenuto seriamente, poiché i ricchi desiderano sempre essere artistici.
Uscì nell’aria fresca, abbottonandosi la giacca leggera, e sbuffando grandi nuvole dal sigaro, quando una figura si precipitò verso di lui in un altro soprabito giallo, ma sbottonato e svolazzante dietro di sé.
«Ehilà, Barker!» disse il merciaio. «Qualche nostro articolo estivo? Sei troppo in ritardo. Leggi di fabbrica, Barker. Umanità e progresso, ragazzo mio.»
«Oh, non chiacchierare,» gridò Barker, pestando i piedi. «Siamo stati sconfitti.»
«Sconfitti… da chi?» chiese Buck, sconcertato.
«Da Wayne.»
Buck guardò per la prima volta il feroce volto bianco di Barker, mentre riluceva alla luce del lampione.
«Vieni a bere qualcosa,» disse.
Si ritirarono in un buffet imbottito e sgargiante, e Buck si sistemò lentamente e pigramente su una sedia, e tirò fuori il portasigari.
«Fatti una fumata,» disse.
Barker era ancora in piedi, e sulle spine, ma dopo un momento di esitazione, si sedette, come se potesse balzare su di nuovo il minuto dopo. Ordinarono da bere in silenzio.
«Com’è successo?» chiese Buck, volgendo su di lui i grandi occhi arditi.
«Come diavolo faccio a saperlo?» gridò Barker. «È successo come… come un sogno. Come possono duecento uomini battere seicento? Come possono?»
«Bene,» disse Buck, freddamente. «Come hanno fatto? Dovresti saperlo tu.»
«Non lo so. Non so descriverlo,» disse l’altro, tamburellando sul tavolo. «È stato così. Eravamo seicento e marciavamo con quelle maledette asce di Auberon… le uniche armi che abbiamo. Marciavamo in doppia fila. Salimmo per Holland Walk, tra le alte palizzate che mi parevano puntare dritte come una freccia verso Pump Street. Ero vicino alla coda della fila ed era lunga. Quando la fine di essa era ancora tra le alte palizzate, la testa della fila stava già attraversando Holland Park Avenue. Poi la testa si tuffò nella rete di viuzze strette dall’altra parte, e la coda e io stesso sbucammo sul grande incrocio. Quando anche noi avemmo raggiunto il lato settentrionale e ci infilammo per una stradina che punta, tortuosa com’è, verso Pump Street, tutto parve diverso. La via schivava e si piegava così tanto che la testa della nostra fila pareva perduta del tutto: poteva altrettanto bene trovarsi nel Nord America. E per tutto questo tempo non avevamo visto un’anima.»
Buck, che tamponava oziosamente la cenere del sigaro sul portacenere, cominciò a muoverla deliberatamente sul tavolo, tracciando piumose linee grigie, una specie di mappa.
«Ma sebbene le viuzze fossero tutte deserte (cosa che un poco mi innervosiva), man mano che ci addentravamo sempre più in esse, una cosa cominciò ad accadere che non riuscivo a capire. A volte molto avanti… a tre svolte o cantoni di distanza, per così dire… scoppiava all’improvviso una specie di rumore, un tramestìo, e grida confuse, e poi cessava. Poi, quando accadeva, qualcosa, non so descriverlo… una specie di scossa o di barcollamento correva lungo la fila, come se la fila fosse una cosa viva, la cui testa fosse stata colpita, o fosse un cavo elettrico. Nessuno di noi sapeva perché ci muovevamo, ma ci muovevamo e ci spingevamo. Poi ci riprendevamo, e proseguivamo per le sporche viuzze, attorno ai cantoni, e su per i vicoli contorti. Le piccole vie storte cominciarono a darmi una sensazione che non so spiegare… come se fosse un sogno. Sentivo come se le cose avessero perso la ragione, e non dovessimo mai più uscire dal labirinto. Strano sentirmi parlare così, non è vero? Le vie erano vie assai ben note, tutte segnate sulla mappa. Ma il fatto rimane. Non avevo paura che accadesse qualcosa. Avevo paura che non accadesse mai nulla… che non accadesse mai nulla per tutta l’eternità di Dio.»
Vuotò il bicchiere e chiese dell’altro whisky. Lo bevve e proseguì.
«E poi qualcosa accadde davvero. Buck, è la solenne verità: nulla è mai accaduto a te nella tua vita. Nulla era mai accaduto a me nella mia vita.»
«Non è mai accaduto nulla!» disse Buck, fissandolo. «Che vuoi dire?»
«Non è mai accaduto nulla,» ripeté Barker, con una morbosa ostinazione. «Non sai cosa significa che una cosa accada? Siedi nel tuo ufficio aspettando i clienti, e i clienti vengono; cammini per strada aspettando gli amici, e gli amici ti incontrano; vuoi da bere e l’ottieni; ti senti incline a una scommessa e la fai. Ti aspetti o di vincere o di perdere, e fai o l’uno o l’altro. Ma le cose che accadono!» e rabbrividì incontrollabilmente.
«Continua,» disse Buck, seccamente. «Vai avanti.»
«Mentre camminavamo spossati attorno ai cantoni, qualcosa accadde. Quando qualcosa accade, accade prima, e tu la vedi dopo. Accade da sé, e tu non c’entri nulla. Prova una cosa spaventosa… che esistono altre cose oltre il proprio io. Posso metterla solo in questo modo. Girammo una svolta, due svolte, tre svolte, quattro svolte, cinque. Poi mi sollevai lentamente dal rigagnolo dove ero stato scagliato mezzo tramortito, e fui di nuovo abbattuto da uomini vivi che mi piombavano addosso, e il mondo era pieno di ruggiti, e uomini enormi che rotolavano come birilli.»
Buck guardò la sua mappa con le sopracciglia aggrottate.
«Era quella Portobello Road?» chiese.
«Sì,» disse Barker. «Sì; Portobello Road… l’ho capito dopo; ma, mio Dio… che posto era! Buck, ti sei mai fermato a lasciare che un pezzo d’uomo di due metri ti sferzasse e sferzasse la testa con due metri di palo con tre chili d’acciaio in cima? Perché, quando hai fatto quell’esperienza, come dice Walt Whitman, ‘riesamini filosofie e religioni.’ »
«Non ho alcun dubbio,» disse Buck. «Se quella era Portobello Road, non vedi cos’è successo?»
«So benissimo cos’è successo. Sono stato buttato a terra quattro volte; un’esperienza che, come dico, ha un effetto sull’atteggiamento mentale. E accadde anche un’altra cosa. Buttai a terra due uomini. Dopo la quarta caduta (non ci fu molto spargimento di sangue… più brutale il precipitarsi e lo spintonarsi… poiché nessuno poteva usare le armi), dopo la quarta caduta, dico, mi rialzai come un diavolo, e strappai un’ascia dalle mani di un uomo e colpii dove vedevo lo scarlatto dei compari di Wayne, colpii ancora e ancora. Due di loro caddero, sanguinando sulle pietre, grazie a Dio… e io risi e mi ritrovai di nuovo lungo disteso nel rigagnolo, e mi rialzai di nuovo, e colpii di nuovo, e ridussi in pezzi la mia alabarda. Ma ferii la testa di un uomo.»
Buck set down his glass with a bang, and spat out curses through his thick moustache.
“What is the matter?” asked Barker, stopping, for the man had been calm up to now, and now his agitation was far more violent than his own.
“The matter?” said Buck, bitterly; “don’t you see how these maniacs have got us? Why should two idiots, one a clown and the other a screaming lunatic, make sane men so different from themselves? Look here, Barker; I will give you a picture. A very well-bred young man of this century is dancing about in a frock-coat. He has in his hands a nonsensical seventeenth century halberd, with which he is trying to kill men in the street in Notting Hill. Damn it! don’t you see how they’ve got us? Never mind how you felt…that is how you looked. The King would put his cursed head on one side and call it exquisite. The Provost of Notting Hill would put his cursed nose in the air and call it heroic. But in Heaven’s name what would you have called it…two days before?”
Barker bit his lip.
“You haven’t been through it, Buck,” he said. “You don’t understand fighting…the atmosphere.”
“I don’t deny the atmosphere,” said Buck, striking the table. “I only say it’s their atmosphere. It’s Adam Wayne’s atmosphere. It’s the atmosphere which you and I thought had vanished from an educated world for ever.”
“Well, it hasn’t,” said Barker; “and if you have any lingering doubts, lend me a poleaxe and I’ll show you.”
There was a long silence, and then Buck turned to his neighbour and spoke in that good-tempered tone that comes of a power of looking facts in the face; the tone in which he concluded great bargains.
“Barker,” he said, “you are right. This old thing…this fighting, has come back. It has come back suddenly and taken us by surprise. So it is first blood to Adam Wayne. But, unless reason and arithmetic and everything else have gone crazy, it must be next and last blood to us. But when an issue has really arisen, there is only one thing to do…to study that issue as such and win in it. Barker, since it is fighting, we must understand fighting. I must understand fighting as coolly and completely as I understand drapery; you must understand fighting as coolly and completely as you understand politics. Now, look at the facts. I stick without hesitation to my original formula. Fighting, when we have the stronger force, is only a matter of arithmetic. It must be. You asked me just now how two hundred men could defeat six hundred. I can tell you. Two hundred men can defeat six hundred when the six hundred behave like fools. When they forget the very conditions they are fighting in; when they fight in a swamp as if it were a mountain; when they fight in a forest as if it were a plain; when they fight in streets without remembering the object of streets.”
“What is the object of streets?” asked Barker.
“What is the object of supper?” cried Buck, furiously. “Isn’t it obvious? This military science is mere common sense. The object of a street is to lead from one place to another; therefore all streets join; therefore street fighting is quite a peculiar thing. You advanced into that hive of streets as if you were advancing into an open plain where you could see everything. Instead of that you were advancing into the bowels of a fortress, with streets pointing at you, streets turning on you, streets jumping out at you, and all in the hands of the enemy. Do you know what Portobello Road is? It is the only point on your journey where two side streets run up opposite each other. Wayne massed his men on the two sides, and when he had let enough of your line go past, cut it in two like a worm. Don’t you see what would have saved you?”
Barker shook his head.
“Can’t your ‘atmosphere’ help you?” asked Buck, bitterly. “Must I attempt explanations in the romantic manner? Suppose that, as you were fighting blindly with the red Notting Hillers who imprisoned you on both sides, you had heard a shout from behind them. Suppose, oh, romantic Barker! that behind the red tunics you had seen the blue and gold of South Kensington taking them in the rear, surrounding them in their turn and hurling them on to your halberds.”
“If the thing had been possible,” began Barker, cursing.
“The thing would have been as possible,” said Buck, simply; “as simple as arithmetic. There are a certain number of street entries that lead to Pump Street. There are not nine hundred; there are not nine million. They do not grow in the night. They do not increase like mushrooms. It must be possible with such an overwhelming force as we have to advance by all of them at once. In every one of the arteries, or approaches, we can put almost as many men as Wayne can put into the field altogether. Once do that and we have him to demonstration. It is like a proposition in Euclid.”
“You think that is certain,” said Barker, anxious but dominated delightfully.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Buck, getting up jovially. “I think Adam Wayne made an uncommonly spirited little fight. And I think I am confoundedly sorry for him.”
“Buck, you are a great man,” cried Barker, rising also. “You’ve knocked me sensible again. I am ashamed to say it, but I was getting romantic. Of course, what you say is adamantine sense. Fighting, being physical, must be mathematical. We were beaten because we were neither mathematical nor physical nor anything else…because we deserved to be beaten. Hold all the approaches, and with our force we must have him. When shall we open the next campaign?”
“Now,” said Buck, and walked out of the bar.
“Now!” cried Barker, following him eagerly. “Do you mean now? It is so late.”
Buck turned on him, stamping.
“Do you think fighting is under the Factory Acts?” he said. And he called a cab. “Notting Hill Gate Station,” he said, and the two drove off.
… . .
A genuine reputation can sometimes be made in an hour. Buck, in the next sixty or eighty minutes showed himself a really great man of action. His cab carried him like a thunderbolt from the King to Wilson, from Wilson to Swindon, from Swindon to Barker again; if his course was jagged, it had the jaggedness of the lightning. Only two things he carried with him, his inevitable cigar and the map of North Kensington and Notting Hill. There were, as he again and again pointed out, with every variety of persuasion and violence, only nine possible ways of approaching Pump Street within a quarter of a mile around it; three out of Westbourne Grove, two out of Ladbroke Grove, and four out of Notting Hill High Street. And he had detachments of two hundred each, stationed at every one of the entrances before the last green of that strange sunset had sunk out of the black sky.
Buck posò il bicchiere con un colpo secco, e sputò imprecazioni attraverso i folti baffi.
«Cosa c’è?» chiese Barker, interrompendosi, poiché l’uomo era stato calmo fino ad allora, e ora la sua agitazione era assai più violenta della propria.
«Cosa c’è?» disse Buck, amaramente; «non vedi come questi maniaci ci hanno preso? Perché due idioti, uno un pagliaccio e l’altro un pazzo urlante, dovrebbero rendere uomini sani di mente così diversi da sé stessi? Guarda qui, Barker; ti faccio un quadro. Un giovanotto assai ben educato di questo secolo saltella in giro in finanziera. Ha in mano un’assurda alabarda del diciassettesimo secolo, con la quale cerca di ammazzare uomini per strada a Notting Hill. Maledizione! non vedi come ci hanno preso? Non importa come ti sei sentito… è così che apparivi. Il Re piegherebbe la sua maledetta testa da un lato e la chiamerebbe squisita. Il Prevosto di Notting Hill storcerebbe il suo maledetto naso all’insù e la chiamerebbe eroica. Ma in nome del Cielo come l’avresti chiamata tu… due giorni prima?»
Barker si morse il labbro.
«Tu non ci sei passato, Buck,» disse. «Tu non capisci il combattere… l’atmosfera.»
«Non nego l’atmosfera,» disse Buck, battendo sul tavolo. «Dico soltanto che è la loro atmosfera. È l’atmosfera di Adam Wayne. È l’atmosfera che io e te credevamo svanita da un mondo civile per sempre.»
«Ebbene, non è così,» disse Barker; «e se hai qualche dubbio persistente, prestami un’ascia e te lo dimostrerò.»
Ci fu un lungo silenzio, e poi Buck si volse al suo vicino e parlò con quel tono bonario che nasce dalla capacità di guardare i fatti in faccia; il tono con cui concludeva i grandi affari.
«Barker,» disse, «hai ragione. Questa vecchia cosa… questo combattere, è tornata. È tornata all’improvviso e ci ha colti di sorpresa. Dunque è primo sangue per Adam Wayne. Ma, a meno che ragione e aritmetica e tutto il resto siano impazziti, dev’essere prossimo e ultimo sangue per noi. Ma quando una questione è davvero sorta, non c’è che una cosa da fare… studiare quella questione come tale e vincerla. Barker, poiché si tratta di combattere, dobbiamo capire il combattere. Io devo capire il combattere con la stessa freddezza e completezza con cui capisco la merceria; tu devi capire il combattere con la stessa freddezza e completezza con cui capisci la politica. Ora, guarda i fatti. Mi attengo senza esitazione alla mia formula originaria. Il combattere, quando abbiamo la forza maggiore, è solo questione di aritmetica. Dev’esserlo. Mi hai appena chiesto come duecento uomini potessero sconfiggerne seicento. Te lo posso dire. Duecento uomini possono sconfiggerne seicento quando i sei cento si comportano da sciocchi. Quando dimenticano le stesse condizioni in cui combattono; quando combattono in una palude come se fosse una montagna; quando combattono in una foresta come se fosse una pianura; quando combattono per le strade senza ricordare a cosa servano le strade.»
«A cosa serve una strada?» chiese Barker.
«A cosa serve una cena?» gridò Buck, furiosamente. «Non è ovvio? Questa scienza militare è puro buon senso. Lo scopo di una strada è condurre da un luogo a un altro; perciò tutte le strade si congiungono; perciò combattere per le strade è cosa assai particolare. Tu sei avanzato in quell’alveare di strade come se stessi avanzando in una pianura aperta dove potevi vedere tutto. Invece stavi avanzando nelle viscere di una fortezza, con strade che ti puntavano contro, strade che ti si voltavano contro, strade che ti balzavano addosso, e tutte in mano al nemico. Sai cos’è Portobello Road? È l’unico punto del tuo percorso dove due vie laterali s’incontrano l’una di fronte all’altra. Wayne ammassò i suoi uomini sui due lati, e quando ebbe lasciato passare abbastanza della tua fila, la tagliò in due come un verme. Non vedi cosa ti avrebbe salvato?»
Barker scosse la testa.
«Non può aiutarti la tua ‘atmosfera’?» chiese Buck, amaramente. «Devo tentare spiegazioni alla maniera romantica? Supponi che, mentre combattevi alla cieca coi rossi di Notting Hill che ti imprigionavano da entrambi i lati, tu avessi udito un grido alle loro spalle. Supponi, oh romantico Barker! che dietro le tuniche rosse tu avessi visto l’azzurro e l’oro di South Kensington coglierli alle spalle, circondarli a loro volta e scagliarli sulle tue alabarde.»
«Se la cosa fosse stata possibile,» cominciò Barker, imprecando.
«La cosa sarebbe stata tanto possibile,» disse Buck, semplicemente; «quanto semplice è l’aritmetica. C’è un certo numero di imbocchi di strada che conducono a Pump Street. Non sono novecento; non sono nove milioni. Non spuntano di notte. Non si moltiplicano come funghi. Dev’essere possibile con una forza schiacciante come la nostra avanzare per tutti quanti in una volta. In ognuna delle arterie, o vie d’accesso, possiamo mettere quasi tanti uomini quanti Wayne può schierarne in campo in tutto. Fatto ciò, l’abbiamo in pugno per dimostrazione. È come una proposizione di Euclide.»
«Tu credi che sia certo,» disse Barker, ansioso ma deliziosamente dominato.
«Ti dico cosa penso,» disse Buck, alzandosi gioviale. «Penso che Adam Wayne abbia dato una battaglietta di rara vivacità. E penso di essere maledettamente dispiaciuto per lui.»
«Buck, sei un grand’uomo,» gridò Barker, alzandosi anche lui. «Mi hai ricondotto alla ragione. Mi vergogno a dirlo, ma stavo diventando romantico. Certo, quel che dici è buon senso adamantino. Il combattere, essendo fisico, dev’essere matematico. Siamo stati sconfitti perché non eravamo né matematici né fisici né altro… perché meritavamo di essere sconfitti. Teniamo tutte le vie d’accesso, e con la nostra forza dobbiamo averlo. Quando apriamo la prossima campagna?»
«Ora,» disse Buck, e uscì dal bar.
«Ora!» gridò Barker, seguendolo con impazienza. «Vuoi dire ora? È così tardi.»
Buck si voltò verso di lui, pestando i piedi.
«Credi che il combattere sia soggetto alle Leggi di fabbrica?» disse. E chiamò una carrozza. «Stazione di Notting Hill Gate,» disse, e i due partirono.
… . .
Una genuina reputazione si può talvolta costruire in un’ora. Buck, nei successivi sessanta o ottanta minuti si rivelò un uomo d’azione davvero grande. La sua carrozza lo portò come un fulmine dal Re a Wilson, da Wilson a Swindon, da Swindon di nuovo a Barker; se il suo tragitto era frastagliato, aveva la frastagliatura del fulmine. Solo due cose portava con sé, il suo immancabile sigaro e la mappa di North Kensington e Notting Hill. C’erano, come faceva notare più e più volte, con ogni varietà di persuasione e violenza, soltanto nove modi possibili di avvicinarsi a Pump Street entro un quarto di miglio all’intorno; tre da Westbourne Grove, due da Ladbroke Grove, e quattro da Notting Hill High Street. E aveva distaccamenti di duecento ciascuno, appostati a ognuno degli ingressi prima che l’ultimo verde di quello strano tramonto fosse sprofondato dal cielo nero.
The sky was particularly black, and on this alone was one false protest raised against the triumphant optimism of the Provost of North Kensington. He overruled it with his infectious common sense.
“There is no such thing,” he said, “as night in London. You have only to follow the line of street lamps. Look, here is the map. Two hundred purple North Kensington soldiers under myself march up Ossington Street, two hundred more under Captain Bruce, of the North Kensington Guard, up Clanricarde Gardens. [Clanricarde Gardens at this time was no longer a cul-de-sac, but was connected by Pump Street to Pembridge Square. See map.] Two hundred yellow West Kensingtons under Provost Swindon attack from Pembridge Road. Two hundred more of my men from the eastern streets, leading away from Queen’s Road. Two detachments of yellows enter by two roads from Westbourne Grove. Lastly, two hundred green Bayswaters come down from the North through Ghepstow Place, and two hundred more under Provost Wilson himself, through the upper part of Pembridge Road. Gentlemen, it is mate in two moves. The enemy must either mass in Pump Street and be cut to pieces…or they must retreat past the Gaslight & Coke Co…and rush on my four hundred…or they must retreat past St. Luke’s Church and rush on the six hundred from the West. Unless we are all mad, it’s plain. Come on. To your quarters and await Captain Brace’s signal to advance. Then you have only to walk up a line of gas-lamps and smash this nonsense by pure mathematics. To-morrow we shall be all civilians again.”
His optimism glowed like a great fire in the night, and ran round the terrible ring in which Wayne was now held helpless. The fight was already over. One’s man energy for one hour had saved the city from war.
For the next ten minutes Buck walked up and down silently beside the motionless clump of his two hundred. He had not changed his appearance in any way, except to sling across his yellow overcoat a case with a revolver in it. So that his light-clad modern figure showed up oddly beside the pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darkly but richly coloured the black night.
At length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; it was the signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, and the whole purple line, with its dimly shining steel, moved up the side alley. Before it was a slope of street, long, straight, and shining in the dark. It was a sword pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nine other swords were pointed that night.
A quarter of an hour’s silent marching brought them almost within earshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But still there was no sound and no sign of the enemy. This time, at any rate, they knew that they were closing in on it mechanically, and they marched on under the lamplight and the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorance which Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one avenue alone.
“Halt…point arms!” cried Buck, suddenly, and as he, spoke there came a clatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds were levelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from the contingent of the North.
“Victory, Mr. Buck!” he cried, panting, “they are ousted. Provost Wilson of Bayswater has taken Pump Street.”
Buck ran forward in his excitement.
“Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by St. Luke’s to meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet us. Run like mad to Swindon and see that the yellows are holding the St. Luke’s Road. We will hold this, never fear. We have them in an iron trap. Run!”
As the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great guard of North Kensington swung on with the certainty of a machine. Yet scarcely a hundred yards further their halberd points again fell in line gleaming in the gaslight. For again a clatter of feet was heard on the stones, and again it proved to be only the messenger.
“Mr. Provost,” he said, “the yellow West Kensingtons have been holding the road by St. Luke’s for twenty minutes since the capture of Pump Street. Pump Street is not two hundred yards away, they cannot be retreating down that road.”
“Then they are retreating down this!” said Provost Buck, with a final cheerfulness, “and by good fortune down a well-lighted road, though it twists about. Forward!”
As they moved along the last three hundred yards of their journey, Buck fell, for the first time in his life, perhaps, into a kind of philosophical reverie, for men of his type are always made kindly, and as it were melancholy, by success.
“I am sorry for poor old Wayne, I really am,” he thought. “He spoke up splendidly for me at that Council. And he blacked old Barker’s eye with considerable spirit. But I don’t see what a man can expect when he fights against arithmetic, to say nothing of civilization. And what a wonderful hoax all this military genius is. I suspect I’ve just discovered what Cromwell discovered, that a sensible tradesman is the best general, and that a man who can buy men and sell men can lead and kill them. The thing’s simply like adding up a column in a ledger. If Wayne has two hundred men, he can’t put two hundred men in nine places at once. If they’re ousted from Pump Street they’re flying somewhere. If they’re not flying past the church they’re flying past the Works. And so we have them. We business men should have no chance at all except that cleverer people than we get bees in their bonnets that prevent them from reasoning properly…so we reason alone. And so I, who am comparatively stupid, see things as God sees them, as a vast machine. My God, what’s this?” And he clapped his hands to his eyes and staggered back.
Then through the darkness he cried in a dreadful voice:
Il cielo era particolarmente nero, e su questo soltanto si levò una falsa protesta contro l’ottimismo trionfante del Prevosto di North Kensington. Egli la scavalcò col suo contagioso buon senso.
«Non esiste,» disse, «cosa come la notte a Londra. Basta seguire la fila dei lampioni. Guardate, ecco la mappa. Duecento soldati purpurei di North Kensington al mio comando marciano su per Ossington Street, altri duecento sotto il Capitano Bruce, della Guardia di North Kensington, su per Clanricarde Gardens. [Clanricarde Gardens a quel tempo non era più un vicolo cieco, ma era collegata da Pump Street a Pembridge Square. Vedi mappa.] Duecento gialli di West Kensington sotto il Prevosto Swindon attaccano da Pembridge Road. Altri duecento dei miei uomini dalle vie orientali, in partenza da Queen’s Road. Due distaccamenti di gialli entrano per due strade da Westbourne Grove. Infine, duecento verdi di Bayswater scendono da Nord attraverso Chepstow Place, e altri duecento sotto lo stesso Prevosto Wilson, per la parte alta di Pembridge Road. Signori, è scacco matto in due mosse. Il nemico deve o ammassarsi a Pump Street ed essere fatto a pezzi… o deve ripiegare oltre la Gaslight & Coke Co… e piombare sui miei quattro cento… o deve ripiegare oltre la chiesa di St. Luke e piombare sui seicento da Ovest. A meno che non siamo tutti pazzi, è chiaro. Avanti. Ai vostri posti e attendete il segnale d’avanzata del Capitano Bruce. Poi non dovrete che risalire una fila di lampioni a gas e schiacciare quest’assurdità con pura matematica. Domani saremo di nuovo tutti civili.»
Il suo ottimismo ardeva come un gran fuoco nella notte, e correva attorno al terribile cerchio in cui Wayne era ora tenuto impotente. La battaglia era già finita. L’energia di un uomo per un’ora aveva salvato la città dalla guerra.
Per i dieci minuti seguenti Buck camminò avanti e indietro in silenzio accanto al gruppo immobile dei suoi duecento. Non aveva mutato in alcun modo il proprio aspetto, se non per gettarsi a tracolla sul soprabito giallo una fondina con dentro una rivoltella. Sicché la sua figura moderna dagli abiti leggeri spiccava stranamente accanto alle pompose uniformi purpuree dei suoi alabardieri, che coloravano cupamente ma riccamente la nera notte.
Alla fine una tromba stridula risuonò da qualche punto più su per la strada; era il segnale dell’avanzata. Buck diede brevemente l’ordine, e l’intera fila purpurea, col suo acciaio fiocamente luccicante, risalì per il vicolo laterale. Davanti a essa c’era un declivio di strada, lungo, dritto e lucente nel buio. Era una spada puntata verso Pump Street, il cuore verso cui nove altre spade erano puntate quella notte.
Un quarto d’ora di marcia silenziosa li portò quasi a portata d’orecchio di qualsiasi tumulto nella cittadella condannata. Ma ancora non c’era suono né segno del nemico. Questa volta, in ogni caso, sapevano che vi si stringevano attorno meccanicamente, e marciarono sotto la luce dei lampioni e il buio senza alcuno di quel misterioso senso d’ignoranza che Barker aveva provato entrando nel paese nemico per un’unica via da solo.
«Alt… armi in resta!» gridò Buck, all’improvviso, e mentre parlava giunse un frastuono di piedi che ruzzolavano sulle pietre. Ma le alabarde furono spianate invano. La figura che si precipitò era un messaggero del contingente del Nord.
«Vittoria, signor Buck!» gridò, ansimando, «sono stati scacciati. Il Prevosto Wilson di Bayswater ha preso Pump Street.»
Buck corse avanti nell’eccitazione.
«Allora, da che parte ripiegano? Dev’essere o per St. Luke per raggiungere Swindon, o per la Compagnia del Gas per raggiungere noi. Corri come un pazzo da Swindon e assicurati che i gialli tengano la strada di St. Luke. Noi terremo questa, non temere. Li abbiamo in una trappola di ferro. Corri!»
Mentre il messaggero si precipitava via nell’oscurità, la grande guardia di North Kensington proseguì con la certezza di una macchina. Eppure a malapena cento iarde più oltre le punte delle loro alabarde caddero di nuovo in fila luccicando alla luce del gas. Poiché di nuovo si udì un frastuono di piedi sulle pietre, e di nuovo si rivelò essere soltanto il messaggero.
«Signor Prevosto,» disse, «i gialli di West Kensington tengono la strada presso St. Luke da venti minuti, dalla cattura di Pump Street. Pump Street non è a duecento iarde di distanza, non possono ripiegare per quella strada.»
«Allora ripiegano per questa!» disse il Prevosto Buck, con una allegria finale, «e per buona sorte per una strada ben illuminata, per quanto si contorca. Avanti!»
Mentre procedevano lungo le ultime trecento iarde del loro cammino, Buck cadde, forse per la prima volta in vita sua, in una specie di fantasticheria filosofica, poiché gli uomini del suo tipo sono sempre resi benevoli, e come dire malinconici, dal successo.
«Mi dispiace per il povero vecchio Wayne, davvero,» pensò. «Ha parlato splendidamente in mio favore a quel Consiglio. E ha pestato un occhio al vecchio Barker con notevole brio. Ma non vedo cosa un uomo possa aspettarsi quando combatte contro l’aritmetica, per non dire della civiltà. E che meravigliosa burla è tutto questo genio militare. Sospetto di aver appena scoperto quel che Cromwell scoprì, che un assennato commerciante è il miglior generale, e che un uomo capace di comprare uomini e vendere uomini sa condurli e ucciderli. La cosa è semplicemente come sommare una colonna in un registro. Se Wayne ha duecento uomini, non può mettere duecento uomini in nove luoghi in una volta. Se sono scacciati da Pump Street, fuggono da qualche parte. Se non fuggono oltre la chiesa, fuggono oltre lo Stabilimento. E così li abbiamo in pugno. Noi uomini d’affari non avremmo alcuna possibilità se non che gente più astuta di noi si mette grilli per la testa che le impediscono di ragionare come si deve… e così ragioniamo noi soli. E così io, che sono comparativamente stupido, vedo le cose come le vede Dio, come una vasta macchina. Dio mio, cos’è questo?» E si portò le mani agli occhi e barcollò all’indietro.
Poi attraverso l’oscurità gridò con voce spaventosa:
“Did I blaspheme God?…I am struck blind.”
“What?” wailed another voice behind him, the voice of a certain Wilfred Jarvis of North Kensington.
“Blind!” cried Buck; “blind!”
“I’m blind, too!” cried Jarvis, in an agony.
“Fools, all of you,” said a gross voice behind them; “we’re all blind. The lamps have gone out.”
“The lamps…but why? where?” cried Buck, turning furiously in the darkness. “How are we to get on? How are we to chase the enemy? Where have they gone?”
“The enemy went…” said the rough voice behind, and then stopped, doubtfully.
“Where?” shouted Buck, stamping like a madman.
“They went,” said the gruff voice, “past the Gas Works, and they’ve used their chance.”
“Great God!” thundered Buck, and snatched at his revolver; “do you mean they’ve turned out…”
But almost before he had spoken the words, he was hurled like a stone from a catapult into the midst of his own men.
“Notting Hill! Notting Hill!” cried frightful voices out of the darkness, and they seemed to come from all sides, for the men of North Kensington, unacquainted with the road, had lost all their bearings in the black world of blindness.
“Notting Hill! Notting Hill!” cried the invisible people, and the invaders were hewn down horribly with black steel, with steel that gave no glint against any light.
… . .
Buck, though badly maimed with the blow of a halberd, kept an angry but splendid sanity. He groped madxy for the wall and found it. Struggling with crawling fingers along it, he found a side opening and retreated into it with the remnants of his men. Their adventures during that prodigious night are not to be described. They did not know whether they were going towards or away from the enemy. Not knowing where they themselves were, or where their opponents were, it was mere irony to ask where was the rest of their army. For a thing had descended upon them which London does not know…darkness, which was before the stars were made, and they were as much lost in it as if they had been made before the stars. Every now and then, as those frightful hours wore on, they buffetted in the darkness against living men, who struck at them and at whom they struck, with an idiot fury. When at last the grey dawn came, they found they had wandered back to the edge of the Uxbridge Road. They found that in those horrible eyeless encounters, the North Kensingtons and the Bayswaters and the West Kensingtons had again and again met and butchered each other, and they heard that Adam Wayne was barricaded in Pump Street.
«Ho bestemmiato Dio?… Sono stato colpito da cecità.»
«Cosa?» gemette un’altra voce dietro di lui, la voce di un certo Wilfred Jarvis di North Kensington.
«Cieco!» gridò Buck; «cieco!»
«Anch’io sono cieco!» gridò Jarvis, in un’agonia.
«Sciocchi, tutti voi,» disse una voce grossolana dietro di loro; «siamo tutti ciechi. I lampioni si sono spenti.»
«I lampioni… ma perché? dove?» gridò Buck, voltandosi furiosamente nell’oscurità. «Come faremo ad avanzare? Come faremo a inseguire il nemico? Dove sono andati?»
«Il nemico è andato…» disse la voce rude dietro, e poi si fermò, dubbioso.
«Dove?» urlò Buck, pestando i piedi come un pazzo.
«Sono andati,» disse la voce burbera, «oltre lo Stabilimento del Gas, e hanno colto la loro occasione.»
«Gran Dio!» tuonò Buck, e afferrò la rivoltella; «vuoi dire che hanno spento…»
Ma quasi prima che avesse pronunciato le parole, fu scagliato come una pietra da una catapulta in mezzo ai suoi stessi uomini.
«Notting Hill! Notting Hill!» gridavano voci spaventose fuori dall’oscurità, e parevano venire da ogni lato, poiché gli uomini di North Kensington, ignari della strada, avevano perso ogni orientamento nel nero mondo della cecità.
«Notting Hill! Notting Hill!» gridava la gente invisibile, e gli invasori venivano abbattuti orribilmente con acciaio nero, con acciaio che non dava alcun luccichio contro nessuna luce.
… . .
Buck, benché gravemente mutilato dal colpo di un’alabarda, conservò una furiosa ma splendida lucidità. Brancolò all’impazzata verso il muro e lo trovò. Lottando con dita striscianti lungo di esso, trovò un’apertura laterale e vi si ritirò coi resti dei suoi uomini. Le loro avventure durante quella prodigiosa notte non si possono descrivere. Non sapevano se stessero andando verso il nemico o allontanandosene. Non sapendo dove essi stessi fossero, né dove fossero i loro avversari, era mera ironia chiedersi dove fosse il resto del loro esercito. Poiché era calata su di loro una cosa che Londra non conosce… l’oscurità, che esisteva prima che le stelle fossero fatte, ed essi vi erano tanto perduti come se fossero stati fatti prima delle stelle. Di tanto in tanto, mentre quelle terribili ore trascorrevano, urtavano nell’oscurità contro uomini vivi, che colpivano loro e che essi colpivano, con una furia da idioti. Quando alla fine giunse la grigia alba, si accorsero di aver vagato indietro fino al margine della Uxbridge Road. Scoprirono che in quegli orribili scontri senz’occhi, i North Kensington e i Bayswater e i West Kensington si erano più e più volte incontrati e trucidati a vicenda, e udirono che Adam Wayne era barricato in Pump Street.
CHAPTER II
THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE “COURT JOURNAL”
JOURNALISM had become like most other such things in England, under the cautious government and philosophy represented by James Barker, somewhat sleepy and much diminished in importance. This was partly due to the disappearance of party government and public speaking, partly to the compromise or deadlock which had made foreign wars impossible, but mostly, of course, to the temper of the whole nation, which was that of a people in a kind of back-water. Perhaps the most well-known of the remaining newspapers was the Court Journal, which was published in a dusty but genteel looking office just out of Kensington High Street. For when all the papers of a people have been for years growing more and more dim and decorous and optimistic, the dimmest and most decorous and most optimistic is very likely to win. In the journalistic competition which was still going on at the beginning of the twentieth century, the final victor was the Court Journal.
For some mysterious reason the King had a great affection for hanging about in the Court Journal office, smoking a morning cigarette and looking over files. Like all ingrainedly idle men, he was very fond of lounging and chatting in places where other people were doing work. But one would have thought that, even in the prosaic England of his day, he might have found a more bustling centre.
On this particular morning, however, he came out of Kensington Palace with a more alert step and a busier air than usual. He wore an extravagantly long frock-coat, a pale-green waistcoat, a very full and degage black tie, and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform as Colonel of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. It was a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked quickly across the Park and the High Street, lighting his cigarette as he went, and flung open the door of the Court Journal office.
“You’ve heard the news, Pally…you’ve heard the news?” he said.
The Editor’s name was Hoskins, but the King called him Pally, which was an abbreviation of Paladium of our Liberties.
“Well, your Majesty,” said Hoskins, slowly (he was a worried, gentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown beard) “…well, your Majesty, I have heard rather curious things, but I…”
“You’ll hear more of them,” said the King, dancing a few steps of a kind of negro shuffle. “You’ll hear more of them, my blood-and-thunder tribune. Do you know what I am going to do for you?”
“No, your Majesty,” replied the Paladium, vaguely.
“I’m going to put your paper on strong, dashing, enterprising lines,” said the King. “Now, where are your posters of last night’s defeat?”
“I did not propose, your Majesty,” said the Editor, “to have any posters exactly…”
“Paper, paper!” cried the King, wildly; “bring me paper as big as a house. I’ll do you posters. Stop, I must take my coat off.” He began removing that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfully at Mr. Hoskins’ head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himself in the glass. “The coat off,” he said, “and hat on. That looks like a sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing. Well,” he continued, turning round abruptly, “come along with that paper.”
The Paladium had only just extricated himself reverently from the folds of the King’s frock-coat, and said bewildered:
“I am afraid, your Majesty…”
“Oh, you’ve got no enterprise,” said Auberon. “What’s that roll in the corner? Wall-paper? Decorations for your private residence? Art in the home, Pally? Fling it over here, and I’ll paint such posters on the back of it that when you put it up in your drawing-room you’ll paste the original pattern against the wall.” And the King unrolled the wall-paper, spreading it over, the whole floor. “Now give me the scissors,” he cried and took them himself before the other could stir.
He slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big as a door. Then he took a big blue pencil and went down on his knees on the dusty oil-cloth, and began to write on them, in huge letters:
“FROM THE FRONT. GENERAL BUCK DEFEATED. DARKNESS, DANGER, AND DEATH. WAYNE SAID TO BE IN PUMP STREET. FEELING IN THE CITY.”
He contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, and got up, with a sigh.
“Not quite intense enough,” he said…not alarming. “I want the Court Journal to be feared as well as loved. Let’s try something more hard-hitting.” And he went down on his knees again. After sucking the blue pencil for some time, he began writing again busily. “How will this do?” he said:
“WAYNE’S WONDERFUL VICTORY.”
“I suppose,” he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking the pencil “I suppose we couldn’t say ‘wictory’…’Wayne’s wonderful wictory’? No, no. Refinement, Pally, refinement. I have it.”
“WAYNE WINS. ASTOUNDING FIGHT IN THE DARK. The gas-lamps in their courses fought against Buck.”
“(Nothing like our fine old English translation.) What else can we say? Well, anything to annoy old Buck;” and he added, thoughtfully, in smaller letters:
“Rumoured Court-martial on General Buck.”
“Those will do for the present,” he said, and turned them both face downwards. “Paste, please.”
The Paladium, with an air of great terror, brought the paste out of an inner room.
The King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing with treacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions fluttering in each hand, he ran outside, and began pasting them up in prominent positions over the front of the office.
“And now,” said Auberon, entering again with undiminished vivacity “now for the leading article.”
He picked up another of the large strips of wall-paper, and, laying it across a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began writing with feverish intensity, reading clauses and fragments aloud to himself, and rolling them on his tongue like wine, to see if they had the pure journalistic flavour.
CAPITOLO II
IL CORRISPONDENTE DEL “COURT JOURNAL”
IL GIORNALISMO era divenuto come la maggior parte delle altre cose in Inghilterra, sotto il cauto governo e la filosofia rappresentati da James Barker, alquanto sonnolento e assai diminuito d’importanza. Ciò era dovuto in parte alla scomparsa del governo di partito e dei comizi pubblici, in parte al compromesso o allo stallo che aveva reso impossibili le guerre estere, ma soprattutto, naturalmente, al temperamento dell’intera nazione, che era quello di un popolo in una specie di acqua stagnante. Forse il più noto dei giornali superstiti era il Court Journal, che si pubblicava in un ufficio polveroso ma d’aspetto distinto, appena fuori da Kensington High Street. Poiché quando tutti i giornali di un popolo sono andati per anni facendosi sempre più smorti e compassati e ottimisti, il più smorto e più compassato e più ottimista ha ogni probabilità di vincere. Nella competizione giornalistica ancora in corso all’inizio del ventesimo secolo, il vincitore finale fu il Court Journal.
Per qualche misteriosa ragione il Re aveva un grande affetto per il gironzolare attorno all’ufficio del Court Journal, fumando una sigaretta mattutina e scorrendo gli archivi. Come tutti gli uomini invincibilmente oziosi, amava molto poltrire e chiacchierare nei luoghi dove altri lavoravano. Ma si sarebbe pensato che, perfino nella prosaica Inghilterra dei suoi giorni, avrebbe potuto trovare un centro più animato.
In quella particolare mattina, però, uscì da Kensington Palace con passo più svelto e aria più indaffarata del solito. Indossava una finanziera stravagantemente lunga, un panciotto verde pallido, una cravatta nera assai ampia e sciolta, e curiosi guanti gialli. Questa era la sua uniforme di Colonnello di un reggimento di sua creazione, il 1° Verde dei Decadenti. Era una bella vista vederlo addestrarli. Attraversò rapidamente il Parco e la High Street, accendendosi la sigaretta mentre andava, e spalancò la porta dell’ufficio del Court Journal.
«Hai sentito la notizia, Pally… hai sentito la notizia?» disse.
Il Direttore si chiamava Hoskins, ma il Re lo chiamava Pally, che era un’abbreviazione di Palladio delle nostre Libertà.
«Ebbene, Maestà,» disse Hoskins, lentamente (era una persona preoccupata, dall’aspetto signorile, con una barba castana disordinata) «… ebbene, Maestà, ho sentito cose piuttosto curiose, ma io…»
«Ne sentirai di più,» disse il Re, accennando qualche passo di una specie di shuffle da negro. «Ne sentirai di più, mio sangue-e-tuono tribuno. Sai cosa sto per fare per te?»
«No, Maestà,» rispose il Palladio, vagamente.
«Rendo il tuo giornale forte, ardito, intraprendente,» disse il Re. «Ora, dove sono i tuoi manifesti sulla disfatta di ieri notte?»
«Non mi proponevo, Maestà,» disse il Direttore, «di avere alcun manifesto, per l’esattezza…»
«Carta, carta!» gridò il Re, selvaggiamente; «portami carta grande come una casa. Ti faccio io i manifesti. Ferma, devo togliermi la giacca.» Cominciò a togliersi quell’indumento con aria di ferma intensità, lo scagliò scherzosamente addosso alla testa del signor Hoskins, avvolgendolo interamente, e si guardò allo specchio. «La giacca via,» disse, «e il cappello in testa. Questo somiglia a un vicedirettore. È davvero l’essenza stessa del vicedirigere. Bene,» proseguì, voltandosi di scatto, «forza, con quella carta.»
Il Palladio si era appena districato con riverenza dalle pieghe della finanziera del Re, e disse sconcertato:
«Temo, Maestà…»
«Oh, non hai spirito d’iniziativa,» disse Auberon. «Cos’è quel rotolo nell’angolo? Carta da parati? Decorazioni per la tua dimora privata? L’Arte in casa, Pally? Buttamela qua, e ti dipingerò manifesti tali sul retro che quando la appenderai nel tuo salotto incollerai il disegno originale contro il muro.» E il Re srotolò la carta da parati, stendendola su tutto il pavimento. «Ora dammi le forbici,» gridò, e le prese lui stesso prima che l’altro potesse muoversi.
Tagliò la carta in circa cinque pezzi, ognuno grande quasi come una porta. Poi prese una grossa matita blu e si mise in ginocchio sull’ incerata polverosa, e cominciò a scrivervi sopra, a lettere enormi:
«DAL FRONTE. IL GENERALE BUCK SCONFITTO. TENEBRE, PERICOLO E MORTE. WAYNE SAREBBE A PUMP STREET. FERMENTO NELLA CITTÀ.»
Lo contemplò per qualche tempo, con la testa da un lato, e si alzò, con un sospiro.
«Non abbastanza intenso,» disse… non allarmante. «Voglio che il Court Journal sia temuto oltre che amato. Proviamo qualcosa di più incisivo.» E si rimise in ginocchio. Dopo aver succhiato la matita blu per qualche tempo, ricominciò a scrivere alacremente. «Come va questo?» disse:
«MERAVIGLIOSA VITTORIA DI WAYNE.»
«Suppongo,» disse, alzando lo sguardo con aria supplichevole, e succhiando la matita «suppongo che non potremmo dire ‘wittoria’… ‘La meravigliosa wittoria di Wayne’? No, no. Raffinatezza, Pally, raffinatezza. Ci sono.»
«WAYNE VINCE. STUPEFACENTE BATTAGLIA NEL BUIO. I lampioni a gas nel loro corso combatterono contro Buck.»
«(Niente come la nostra bella vecchia traduzione inglese.) Cos’altro possiamo dire? Beh, qualsiasi cosa per irritare il vecchio Buck;» e aggiunse, pensieroso, in lettere più piccole:
«Si vocifera di una Corte marziale sul Generale Buck.»
«Questi andranno bene per il momento,» disse, e li rivoltò entrambi a faccia in giù. «Colla, prego.»
Il Palladio, con aria di gran terrore, portò la colla da una stanza interna.
Il Re la spalmò col godimento di un bambino che pasticcia con la melassa. Poi, prendendo una delle sue enormi composizioni che svolazzavano in ciascuna mano, corse fuori, e cominciò ad affiggerle in posizioni ben visibili sulla facciata dell’ufficio.
«E ora,» disse Auberon, rientrando con vivacità immutata «ora l’articolo di fondo.»
Prese un’altra delle grandi strisce di carta da parati, e, stendendola su una scrivania, tirò fuori una penna stilografica e cominciò a scrivere con febbrile intensità, leggendo clausole e frammenti ad alta voce a sé stesso, e rigirandoseli sulla lingua come vino, per vedere se avessero il puro sapore giornalistico.
“The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, awful as it is, awful as it is… (no, distressing as it is), may do some good if it draws attention to the what’s-his-name inefficiency (scandalous inefficiency, of course) of the Government’s preparations. In our present state of information, it would be premature (what a jolly word!)… it would be premature to cast any reflections upon the conduct of General Buck, whose services upon so many stricken fields (ha, ha!), and whose honourable scars and laurels give him a right to have judgment upon him at least suspended. But there is one matter on which we must speak plainly. We have been silent on it too long, from feelings, perhaps of mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty. This situation would never have arisen but for what we can only call the indefensible conduct of the King. It pains us to say such things, but, speaking as we do in the public interests (I plagiarize from Barker’s famous epigram), we shall not shrink because of the distress we may cause to any individual, even the most exalted. At this crucial moment of our country, the voice of the People demands with a single tongue, ‘Where is the King?’ What is he doing while his subjects tear each other in pieces in the streets of a great city? Are his amusements and his dissipations (of which we cannot pretend to be ignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no thought for a perishing nation? It is with a deep sense of our responsibility that we warn that exalted person that neither his great position nor his incomparable talents will save him in the hour of delirium from the fate of all those who, in the madness of luxury or tyranny, have met the English people in the rare day of its wrath.”
“I am now,” said the King, “going to write an account of the battle by an eye-witness.” And he picked up a fourth sheet of wall-paper. Almost at the same moment Buck strode quickly into the office. He had a bandage round his head.
“I was told,” he said with his usual gruff civility, “that your Majesty was here.”
“And of all things on earth,” cried the King, with delight, “here is an eye-witness! An eyewitness who, I regret to observe, has at present only one eye to witness with. Can you write us the special article, Buck? Have you a rich style?”
Buck, with a self-restraint which almost approached politeness, took no notice whatever of the King’s maddening geniality.
“I took the liberty, your Majesty,” he said shortly, “of asking Mr. Barker to come here also.”
As he spoke, indeed, Barker came swinging into the office, with his usual air of hurry.
“What is happening now?” asked Buck, turning to him with a kind of relief.
“Fighting still going on,” said Barker. “The four hundred from West Kensington were hardly touched last night. They hardly got near the place. Poor Wilson’s Bayswater men got cut about, though. They fought confoundedly well. They took Pump Street once. What mad things do happen in the world. To think that of all of us it should be little Wilson with the red whiskers who came put best.”
The King made a note on his paper:
“Romantic Conduct of Mr. Wilson.”
“Yes,” said Buck, “it makes one a bit less proud of one’s ‘h’s.’ ”
The King suddenly folded or crumpled up the paper, and put it in his pocket.
“I have an idea,” he said. “I will be an eyewitness. I will write you such letters from the Front as will be more gorgeous than the real thing. Give me my coat, Paladium. I entered this room a mere King of England. I leave it, Special War Correspondent of the Court Journal. It is useless to stop me, Pally; it is vain to cling to my knees, Buck; it is hopeless, Barker, to weep upon my neck. ‘When duty calls’… the remainder of the sentiment escapes me. You will receive my first article this evening by the eight o’clock post.”
And, running out of the office, he jumped upon a blue Bayswater omnibus that went swinging by.
“Well,” said Barker, gloomily, “well.”
“Barker,” said Buck, “business may be lower than politics, but war is, as I discovered last night, a long sight more like business. You politicians are such ingrained demagogues that even when you have a despotism you think of nothing but public opinion. So you learn to tack and run, and are afraid of the first breeze. Now we stick to a thing and get it. And our mistakes help us. Look here! at this moment we’ve beaten Wayne.”
“Beaten Wayne,” repeated Barker.
“Why the dickens not?” cried the other, flinging out his hands. “Look here. I said last night that we had them by holding the nine entrances. Well, I was wrong. We should have had them but for a singular event…the lamps went out. But for that it was certain. Has it occurred to you, my brilliant Barker, that another singular event has happened since that singular event of the lamps going out?”
“What event?” asked Barker.
“By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen,” cried out Buck, with a savage air of patience. “Why the hell aren’t we holding all those approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should have been done at sunrise. The confounded doctor wouldn’t let me go out. You were in command.”
Barker smiled grimly.
“It is a gratification to me, my dear Buck, to be able to say that we anticipated your suggestions precisely. We went as early as possible to reconnoitre the nine entrances. Unfortunately, while we were fighting each other in the dark, like a lot of drunken navvies, Mr. Wayne’s friend’s were working very hard indeed. Three hundred yards from. Pump Street, at every one of those entrances, there is a barricade nearly as high as the houses. They were finishing the last, in Pembridge Road, when we arrived. Our mistakes,” he cried bitterly, and flung his cigarette on the ground. “It is not we who learn from them.”
There was a silence for a few moments, and Barker lay back wearily in a chair. The office clock ticked exactly in the stillness.
«La notizia del disastro delle nostre forze a Notting Hill, per quanto tremenda, per quanto tremenda… (no, angosciante quale essa è), può fare qualche bene se richiama l’attenzione sulla come-si-chiama inefficienza (scandalosa inefficienza, ovviamente) dei preparativi del Governo. Nell’attuale nostro stato d’informazione, sarebbe prematuro (che parola deliziosa!)… sarebbe prematuro gettare qualsiasi ombra sulla condotta del Generale Buck, i cui servigi su tanti campi insanguinati (ah, ah!), e le cui onorevoli cicatrici e i cui allori gli danno diritto ad avere quantomeno sospeso ogni giudizio su di lui. Ma c’è una questione su cui dobbiamo parlare chiaro. Siamo stati troppo a lungo silenziosi su di essa, per sentimenti, forse, di malintesa cautela, forse di malintesa lealtà. Questa situazione non sarebbe mai sorta se non per quella che possiamo solo definire l’indifendibile condotta del Re. Ci addolora dire tali cose, ma, parlando come parliamo nel pubblico interesse (plagio il celebre epigramma di Barker), non ci tireremo indietro per l’angoscia che possiamo arrecare a qualsiasi individuo, per quanto altolocato. In questo momento cruciale del nostro paese, la voce del Popolo domanda con una sola lingua: ‘Dov’è il Re?’ Cosa fa mentre i suoi sudditi si dilaniano a pezzi per le strade di una grande città? Sono i suoi svaghi e le sue dissipazioni (delle quali non possiamo fingere d’essere ignari) tanto assorbenti che non può risparmiare un pensiero per una nazione morente? È con un profondo senso della nostra responsabilità che avvertiamo quell’altolocata persona che né la sua grande posizione né i suoi incomparabili talenti lo salveranno, nell’ora del delirio, dalla sorte di tutti coloro che, nella follia del lusso o della tirannia, hanno incontrato il popolo inglese nel raro giorno della sua ira.»
«Ora,» disse il Re, «scriverò un resoconto della battaglia da parte di un testimone oculare.» E prese un quarto foglio di carta da parati. Quasi nello stesso momento Buck entrò a grandi passi nell’ufficio. Aveva una benda intorno alla testa.
«Mi è stato detto,» disse con la sua solita burbera cortesia, «che vostra Maestà era qui.»
«E fra tutte le cose sulla terra,» gridò il Re, con gioia, «ecco un testimone oculare! Un testimone oculare che, mi dispiace osservare, al momento ha un solo occhio con cui testimoniare. Puoi scriverci l’articolo speciale, Buck? Hai uno stile ricco?»
Buck, con un autocontrollo che quasi rasentava la cortesia, non fece il minimo caso alla esasperante affabilità del Re.
«Mi sono preso la libertà, Maestà,» disse brevemente, «di chiedere al signor Barker di venire anche lui qui.»
Mentre parlava, infatti, Barker entrò dondolando nell’ufficio, con la sua solita aria di fretta.
«Cosa succede ora?» chiese Buck, voltandosi verso di lui con una specie di sollievo.
«Si combatte ancora,» disse Barker. «I quattrocento di West Kensington sono stati appena sfiorati ieri notte. Non si sono quasi avvicinati al luogo. I poveri uomini di Wilson, di Bayswater, sono stati fatti a pezzi, però. Hanno combattuto maledettamente bene. Hanno preso Pump Street una volta. Che cose folli accadono al mondo. Pensare che fra tutti noi sia stato il piccolo Wilson dalle fedine rosse a cavarsela meglio.»
Il Re prese un appunto sulla sua carta:
«Romantica Condotta del signor Wilson.»
«Sì,» disse Buck, «fa sentire un po’ meno fieri delle proprie ‘acca.’ »
Il Re improvvisamente piegò o accartocciò la carta, e se la mise in tasca.
«Ho un’idea,» disse. «Sarò io un testimone oculare. Vi scriverò dal Fronte lettere tali che saranno più magnifiche della realtà. Datemi la giacca, Palladio. Sono entrato in questa stanza semplice Re d’Inghilterra. La lascio Corrispondente Speciale di Guerra del Court Journal. È inutile fermarmi, Pally; è vano aggrapparsi alle mie ginocchia, Buck; è disperato, Barker, piangere sul mio collo. ‘Quando il dovere chiama’… il resto del sentimento mi sfugge. Riceverete il mio primo articolo stasera con la posta delle otto in punto.»
E, correndo fuori dall’ufficio, saltò su un omnibus blu di Bayswater che passava dondolando.
«Ebbene,» disse Barker, cupamente, «ebbene.»
«Barker,» disse Buck, «gli affari saranno pure inferiori alla politica, ma la guerra è, come ho scoperto ieri notte, di gran lunga più simile agli affari. Voi politici siete demagoghi tanto radicati che perfino quando avete un dispotismo non pensate ad altro che all’opinione pubblica. Così imparate a bordeggiare e a scappare, e avete paura della prima brezza. Noi invece ci teniamo attaccati a una cosa e la otteniamo. E i nostri errori ci aiutano. Guarda qui! in questo momento abbiamo battuto Wayne.»
«Battuto Wayne,» ripeté Barker.
«Perché diavolo no?» gridò l’altro, spalancando le mani. «Guarda qui. Ieri notte ho detto che li avevamo in pugno tenendo i nove ingressi. Ebbene, mi sbagliavo. Li avremmo avuti se non fosse stato per un singolare evento… i lampioni si spensero. Se non per quello, era certo. Ti è venuto in mente, mio brillante Barker, che un altro singolare evento è accaduto dopo quel singolare evento dello spegnersi dei lampioni?»
«Quale evento?» chiese Barker.
«Per una stupefacente coincidenza, il sole è sorto,» esclamò Buck, con un’aria selvaggia di pazienza. «Perché diavolo non stiamo tenendo tutte quelle vie d’accesso ora, e passando di nuovo su di loro? Andava fatto all’alba. Quel maledetto dottore non mi ha lasciato uscire. Tu eri al comando.»
Barker sorrise cupamente.
«Mi è di soddisfazione, mio caro Buck, poter dire che abbiamo anticipato le tue proposte esattamente. Siamo andati il più presto possibile a perlustrare i nove ingressi. Sfortunatamente, mentre noi ci combattevamo a vicenda nel buio, come un mucchio di sterratori ubriachi, gli amici del signor Wayne lavoravano davvero sodo. A trecento iarde da Pump Street, a ognuno di quegli ingressi, c’è una barricata alta quasi quanto le case. Stavano finendo l’ultima, in Pembridge Road, quando arrivammo. I nostri errori,» gridò amaramente, e gettò la sigaretta a terra. «Non siamo noi a imparare da essi.»
Ci fu un silenzio per qualche istante, e Barker si abbandonò stancamente su una sedia. L’orologio dell’ufficio ticchettava netto nella quiete.
At length Barker said suddenly:
“Buck, does it ever cross your mind what this is all about? The Hammersmith to Maida Vale thoroughfare was an uncommonly good speculation. You and I hoped a great deal from it. But is it worth it? It will cost us thousands to crush this ridiculous riot. Suppose we let it alone?”
“And be thrashed in public by a red-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up?” cried out Buck, starting to his feet. “What do you propose to do, Mr. Barker? To apologize to the admirable Mr. Wayne? To kneel to the Charter of the Cities? To clasp to your bosom the flag of the Red Lion? To kiss in succession every sacred lamp-post that saved Notting Hill? No, by God! My men fought jolly well…they were beaten by a trick. And they’ll fight again.”
“Buck,” said Barker, “I always admired you. And you were quite right in what you said the other day.”
“In what?”
“In saying,” said Barker, rising quietly, “that we had all got into Adam Wayne’s atmosphere and out of our own. My friend, the whole territorial kingdom of Adam Wayne extends to about nine streets, with barricades at the end of them. But the spiritual kingdom of Adam Wayne extends, God knows where…it extends to this office at any rate. The red-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up is filling this room with his roaring, unreasonable soul. And it was the red-haired madman who said the last word you spoke.”
Buck walked to the window without replying.
“You understand, of course,” he said at last, “I do not dream of giving in.”
… . .
The King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his blue omnibus. The traffic of London as a whole had not, of course, been greatly disturbed by these events, for the affair was treated as a Notting Hill riot, and that area was marked off as if it had been in the hands of a gang of recognized rioters. The blue omnibuses simply went round as they would have done if a road were being mended, and the omnibup on which the correspondent of the Court Journal was sitting swept round the corner of Queen’s Road, Bayswater.
The King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was enjoying the speed at which it was going.
“Forward, my beauty, my Arab,” he said, patting the omnibus encouragingly, “fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy relations with thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin and his steed? Does he sleep side by side with thee…”
His meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring stopage. Looking over the edge, he saw that the heads of the horses were being held by men in the uniform of Wayne’s army, and heard the voice of an officer calling out orders.
King Auberon descended from the omnibus with dignity. The guard or picket of red halberdiers who had stopped the vehicle did not number more than twenty, and they were under the command of a short, dark, clever-looking young man, conspicuous among the rest as being clad in an ordinary frock-coat, but girt round the waist with a red sash and a long seventeenth-century sword. A shiny silk hat and spectacles completed the outfit in a pleasing manner.
“To whom have I the honour of speaking?” said the King, endeavouring to look like Charles I, in spite of personal difficulties.
The dark man in spectacles lifted his hat with equal gravity.
“My name is Bowles,” he said. “I am a chemist. I am also a captain of O company of the army of Notting Hill. I am distressed at having to incommode you by stopping the omnibus, but this area is covered by our proclamation, and we intercept all traffic. May I ask to whom I have the honour…Why, good gracious, I beg your Majesty’s pardon. I am quite overwhelmed at finding myself concerned with the King.”
Auberon put up his hands with indescribable grandeur.
“Not with the King,” he said; “with the special war correspondent of the Court Journal.”
“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” began Mr. Bowles, doubtfully.
“Do you call me Majesty? I repeat,” said Auberon firmly, “I am a representative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep sense of responsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire a veil to be drawn over the past.”
“Very well, sir,” said Mr. Bowles, with an air of submission, “in our eyes the sanctity of the press is at least as great as that of the throne. We desire nothing better than that our wrongs and our glories should be widely known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have any objection to being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?”
“The Provost I have had the honour of meeting,” said Auberon, easily. “We old journalists, you know, meet everybody. I should be most delighted to have the same honour again. General Turnbull, also, it would be a gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting. We of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them.”
“Will you be so good as to step this way?” said the leader of O company.
“I am always good,” said Mr. Pinker. “Lead on.”
Alla fine Barker disse improvvisamente:
«Buck, ti passa mai per la mente di cosa si tratti tutto questo? La strada di scorrimento da Hammersmith a Maida Vale era una speculazione straordinariamente buona. Io e te speravamo un gran che da essa. Ma ne vale la pena? Ci costerà migliaia schiacciare questa ridicola sommossa. Supponi di lasciarla stare?»
«E farci bastonare in pubblico da un pazzo dai capelli rossi che due medici qualsiasi rinchiuderebbero?» esclamò Buck, balzando in piedi. «Cosa proponi di fare, signor Barker? Di scusarti con l’ammirevole signor Wayne? D’inginocchiarti alla Carta delle Città? Di stringerti al petto la bandiera del Leone Rosso? Di baciare a uno a uno ogni sacro lampione che salvò Notting Hill? No, per Dio! I miei uomini hanno combattuto assai bene… sono stati sconfitti con un trucco. E combatteranno di nuovo.»
«Buck,» disse Barker, «ti ho sempre ammirato. E avevi perfettamente ragione in quel che dicesti l’altro giorno.»
«In cosa?»
«Nel dire,» disse Barker, alzandosi quietamente, «che eravamo tutti finiti nell’ atmosfera di Adam Wayne e fuori dalla nostra. Amico mio, l’intero regno territoriale di Adam Wayne si estende a circa nove strade, con barricate all’estremità. Ma il regno spirituale di Adam Wayne si estende, Dio sa dove… si estende a quest’ufficio in ogni caso. Il pazzo dai capelli rossi che due medici qualsiasi rinchiuderebbero sta riempiendo questa stanza con la sua ruggente, irragionevole anima. Ed è stato il pazzo dai capelli rossi a dire l’ultima parola che hai pronunciato.»
Buck andò alla finestra senza rispondere.
«Tu capisci, naturalmente,» disse infine, «che non mi sogno di cedere.»
… . .
Il Re, intanto, procedeva sferragliando sull’imperiale del suo omnibus blu. Il traffico di Londra nel suo complesso non era stato, ovviamente, gran disturbato da questi eventi, poiché la faccenda era trattata come una sommossa di Notting Hill, e quell’area era stata delimitata come se fosse in mano a una banda di riconosciuti rivoltosi. Gli omnibus blu giravano semplicemente attorno come avrebbero fatto se una strada fosse in riparazione, e l’omnibus su cui sedeva il corrispondente del Court Journal svoltava attorno all’angolo di Queen’s Road, a Bayswater.
Il Re era solo sull’imperiale del veicolo, e godeva della velocità con cui procedeva.
«Avanti, mia bellezza, mio Arabo,» disse, dando pacche incoraggianti all’omnibus, «il più veloce di tutta la tua tribù balzante. Sono i tuoi rapporti col tuo conducente, mi domando, quelli del Beduino col suo destriero? Dorme egli fianco a fianco con te…»
Le sue meditazioni furono interrotte da un arresto improvviso e stridente. Guardando oltre il bordo, vide che le teste dei cavalli venivano trattenute da uomini in uniforme dell’esercito di Wayne, e udì la voce di un ufficiale che gridava ordini.
Re Auberon discese dall’omnibus con dignità. La guardia o picchetto di alabardieri rossi che aveva fermato il veicolo non contava più di venti uomini, ed erano al comando di un giovane basso, bruno, dall’aria intelligente, cospicuo tra gli altri per essere vestito di un’ordinaria finanziera, ma cinto alla vita da una fascia rossa e da una lunga spada del diciassettesimo secolo. Un lucido cilindro di seta e gli occhiali completavano l’abbigliamento in modo piacevole.
«Con chi ho l’onore di parlare?» disse il Re, sforzandosi di somigliare a Carlo I, malgrado difficoltà personali.
L’uomo bruno con gli occhiali si sollevò il cappello con pari gravità.
«Mi chiamo Bowles,» disse. «Sono un farmacista. Sono anche un capitano della compagnia O dell’esercito di Notting Hill. Sono desolato di dover incomodarvi fermando l’omnibus, ma quest’area è coperta dalla nostra proclamazione, e intercettiamo ogni traffico. Posso chiedere con chi ho l’onore… Ma, santo cielo, chiedo perdono a vostra Maestà. Sono del tutto sopraffatto nel trovarmi ad avere a che fare col Re.»
Auberon alzò le mani con indescrivibile grandiosità.
«Non col Re,» disse; «col corrispondente speciale di guerra del Court Journal.»
«Chiedo perdono a vostra Maestà,» cominciò il signor Bowles, dubbioso.
«Mi chiamate Maestà? Ripeto,» disse Auberon fermamente, «sono un rappresentante della stampa. Ho scelto, con un profondo senso di responsabilità, il nome di Pinker. Desidererei che si tirasse un velo sul passato.»
«Benissimo, signore,» disse il signor Bowles, con aria di sottomissione, «ai nostri occhi la sacralità della stampa è almeno pari a quella del trono. Non desideriamo nulla di meglio che i nostri torti e le nostre glorie siano ampiamente conosciuti. Posso chiedere, signor Pinker, se avete qualche obiezione a essere presentato al Prevosto e al Generale Turnbull?»
«Il Prevosto ho avuto l’onore di conoscerlo,» disse Auberon, con disinvoltura. «Noi vecchi giornalisti, sapete, conosciamo tutti. Sarei lietissimo di avere di nuovo lo stesso onore. Anche il Generale Turnbull, sarebbe una gratificazione conoscerlo. I più giovani sono così interessanti. Noi della vecchia banda di Fleet Street perdiamo i contatti con loro.»
«Volete essere così gentile da farvi da questa parte?» disse il capo della compagnia O.
«Sono sempre gentile,» disse il signor Pinker. «Fate strada.»
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT ARMY OF SOUTH KENSINGTON
THE article from the special correspondent of the Court Journal arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King’s arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at first as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, “Try American style,” and the fragment began:
“The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very…;” and then broke off, followed by the note, “Good sound journalism safer. Try it.”
The experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin:
“The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any…”
This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almost undecipherable, but seemed to be something like:
“How about old Steevens and the mot juste? E.g. …”
“Morning winked a little wearily at me over the cult edge of Campden Hill and its houses with their sharp shadows. Under the abrupt black cardboard of the outline, it took some little time to detect colours; but at length I saw a brownish yellow shifting in the obscurity, and I knew that it was the guard of Swindon’s West Kensington army. They are being held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above the Bayswater Road. Their camp and their main force is under the great water works tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say that the water works tower looked swart.
“As I passed them and came over the curve of Silver Street, I saw the blue cloudy masses of Barker’s men blocking the entrance to the highroad like a sapphire smoke (good). The disposition of the allied troops, under the general management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be as follows…The Yellow Army (if I may so describe the West Kensingtonians) lies, as I have said, hi a strip along the ridge; its furthest point westward being the west side of Campden Hill Road, its furthest point eastward the beginning of Kensington Gardens. The Green Army of Wilson lines the Notting Hill High Road itself from Queen’s Road to the corner of Pembridge Road, curving round the latter, and extending some three hundred yards up towards Westbourne Grove. Westbourne Grove itself is occupied by Barker of South Kensington. The fourth side of this rough square, the Queen’s Road side, is held by some of Buck’s Purple warriors.
“The whole resembles some ancient and dainty Dutch flower-bed. Along the crest of Campden Hill lie the golden crocuses of West Kensington. They are, as it were, the first fiery fringe of the whole. Northward lies our hyacinth Barker, with all his blue hyacinths. Round to the south-west run the green rushes of Wilson of Bayswater, and a line of violet irises (aptly symbolized by Mr. Buck) complete the whole. The argent exterior… (I am losing the style. I should have said ‘Curving with a whisk’ instead of merely ‘Curving.’ Also I should have called the hyacinths ‘sudden.’ I cannot keep this up. War is too rapid for this style of writing. Please ask the office-boy to insert mots justes.)
“The truth is that there is nothing to report. That commonplace element which is always ready to devour all beautiful things (as the Black Pig in the Irish Mythology will finally devour the stars and gods); that commonplace element, as I say, has in its Black Piggish way devoured finally the chances of any romance in this affair; that which once consisted of absurd but thrilling combats in the streets, has degenerated into something which is the very prose of warfare…it has degenerated into a siege. A siege may be defined as a peace plus the inconvenience of war. Of course Wayne cannot hold out. There is no more chance of help from anywhere else than of ships from the moon. And if old Wayne had stocked his street with tinned meats till all his garrison had to sit on them, he couldn’t hold out for more than a month or two. As a matter of melancholy fact he has done something rather like this. He has stocked his street with food until there must be uncommonly little room to turn round. But what is the good? To hold out for all that time and then to give in of necessity, what does it mean? It means waiting until your victories are forgotten and then taking the trouble to be defeated. I cannot understand how Wayne can be so inartistic.
“And how odd it is that one views a thing quite differently when one knows it is defeated. I always thought Wayne was rather fine. But now, when I know that he is done for, there seems to be nothing else but Wayne. All the streets seem to point at him, all the chimneys seem to lean towards him. I suppose it is a morbid feeling; but Pump Street seems to be the only part of London that I feel physically. I suppose, I say, that it is morbid. I suppose it is exactly how a man feels about his heart when his heart is weak. ‘Pump Street‘“the heart is a pump. And I am drivelling.
“Our finest leader at the front is beyond all question, General Wilson. He has adopted alone among the other Provosts the uniform of his own halberdiers, although that fine old sixteenth-century garb was not originally intended to go with red side-whiskers. It was he who, against a most admirable and desperate defence, broke last night into Pump Street and held it for at least half an hour. He was afterwards expelled from it by General Turnbull, of Notting Hill, but only after desperate fighting and the sudden descent of that terrible darkness which proved so much more fatal to the forces of General Buck and General Swindon.
“Provost Wayne himself, with whom I had, with great good fortune, a most interesting interview, bore the most eloquent testimony to the conduct of General Wilson and his men. His precise words are as follows: ‘I have bought sweets at his funny little shop when I was four years old, and ever since. I never noticed anything, I am ashamed to say, except that he talked through his nose, and didn’t wash himself particularly. And he came over our barricade like a devil from hell.’ I repeated this speech to General Wilson himself, with some delicate improvements, and he seemed pleased with it. He does not, however, seem pleased with anything so much just now as he is with the wearing of a sword. I have it from the front on the best authority that General Wilson was not completely shaved yesterday. It is believed in military circles that he is growing a moustache…
CAPITOLO III
IL GRANDE ESERCITO DI SOUTH KENSINGTON
L’ARTICOLO del corrispondente speciale del Court Journal giunse a tempo debito, scritto su carta da minuta grossolanissima nell’arabesca calligrafia del Re, nella quale tre parole riempivano una pagina, e tuttavia erano illeggibili. Per giunta, il contributo era tanto più sconcertante a prima vista in quanto si apriva con una successione di paragrafi cancellati. Lo scrittore pareva aver tentato l’articolo una o due volte in vari stili giornalistici. A margine di un esperimento era scritto: “Prova lo stile americano,” e il frammento cominciava:
“Il Re deve andarsene. Vogliamo uomini di fegato. Le sciocchezze sono tutte molto…;” e poi s’interrompeva, seguito dalla nota: “Più sicuro il buon giornalismo solido. Provalo.”
L’esperimento di buon giornalismo solido pareva cominciare:
“Il più grande dei poeti inglesi ha detto che una rosa con qualunque…”
Anche questo si arrestava bruscamente. L’annotazione successiva a margine era quasi indecifrabile, ma sembrava essere qualcosa come:
“Che ne dici del vecchio Steevens e del mot juste? Ad es. …”
“Il mattino mi ammiccava un poco stancamente sopra l’orlo elegante di Campden Hill e delle sue case dalle ombre nitide. Sotto il netto cartone nero del profilo, ci volle un certo tempo per distinguere i colori; ma alla fine vidi un giallo brunastro spostarsi nell’oscurità, e capii che era la guardia dell’esercito di West Kensington di Swindon. Sono tenuti come riserva, e schierati lungo tutto il crinale sopra la Bayswater Road. Il loro campo e il loro grosso stanno sotto la grande torre dell’acquedotto su Campden Hill. Ho dimenticato di dire che la torre dell’acquedotto pareva fosca.
“Mentre li oltrepassavo e giungevo sulla curva di Silver Street, vidi le azzurre masse nuvolose degli uomini di Barker che bloccavano l’ingresso alla via maestra come un fumo di zaffiro (bello). La disposizione delle truppe alleate, sotto la gestione generale del signor Wilson, pare essere la seguente… L’Esercito Giallo (se così posso descrivere i westkensingtoniani) sta, come ho detto, in una striscia lungo il crinale; il suo punto più a ovest è il lato occidentale di Campden Hill Road, il suo punto più a est l’inizio dei Kensington Gardens. L’Esercito Verde di Wilson schiera lungo la Notting Hill High Road stessa da Queen’s Road all’angolo di Pembridge Road, curvando attorno a quest’ultima, e spingendosi per un trecento metri su verso Westbourne Grove. Westbourne Grove stessa è occupata da Barker di South Kensington. Il quarto lato di questo grezzo quadrato, il lato di Queen’s Road, è tenuto da alcuni dei guerrieri Purpurei di Buck.
“L’insieme somiglia a qualche antica e graziosa aiuola olandese. Lungo la cresta di Campden Hill giacciono i crochi dorati di West Kensington. Sono, per così dire, la prima frangia ardente del tutto. A nord giace il nostro giacinto Barker, con tutti i suoi giacinti azzurri. Verso sud-ovest corrono i verdi giunchi di Wilson di Bayswater, e una linea di iris violetti (aptamente simboleggiati dal signor Buck) completa il tutto. L’esterno argenteo… (Sto perdendo lo stile. Avrei dovuto dire ‘Curvando con un frullo’ invece del semplice ‘Curvando.’ Inoltre avrei dovuto chiamare i giacinti ‘improvvisi.’ Non riesco a tenere questo passo. La guerra è troppo rapida per questo stile di scrittura. Prego chiedere al fattorino d’ufficio d’inserire i mots justes.)
“La verità è che non c’è nulla da riferire. Quell’elemento banale che è sempre pronto a divorare tutte le cose belle (come il Maiale Nero nella mitologia irlandese finirà per divorare le stelle e gli dèi); quell’elemento banale, come dico, ha alla sua maniera di Maiale Nero divorato infine le probabilità di qualsiasi romanticismo in questa faccenda; ciò che una volta consisteva in assurdi ma emozionanti combattimenti nelle strade, è degenerato in qualcosa che è la vera prosa della guerra… è degenerato in un assedio. Un assedio si può definire come una pace più gli inconvenienti della guerra. Naturalmente Wayne non può resistere. Non c’è più probabilità d’aiuto da qualunque altra parte che di navi dalla luna. E se il vecchio Wayne avesse riempito la sua strada di carne in scatola finché tutta la sua guarnigione avesse dovuto sedercisi sopra, non potrebbe resistere per più di un mese o due. Come fatto malinconico, egli ha fatto qualcosa di piuttosto simile a questo. Ha riempito la sua strada di viveri finché non deve esserci insolitamente poco spazio per voltarsi. Ma a che pro? Resistere per tutto quel tempo e poi cedere per necessità, cosa significa? Significa aspettare finché le vostre vittorie siano dimenticate e poi prendersi la briga di essere sconfitti. Non riesco a capire come Wayne possa essere così poco artistico.
“E com’è strano che si veda una cosa in modo del tutto diverso quando si sa che è sconfitta. Ho sempre pensato che Wayne fosse piuttosto in gamba. Ma ora, quando so che è spacciato, pare non esserci nient’altro che Wayne. Tutte le strade paiono indicarlo, tutti i comignoli paiono piegarsi verso di lui. Suppongo sia una sensazione morbosa; ma Pump Street pare essere l’unica parte di Londra che sento fisicamente. Suppongo, dico, che sia morbosa. Suppongo sia esattamente come un uomo sente il proprio cuore quando il cuore è debole. ‘Pump Street’—il cuore è una pompa. E sto vaneggiando.
“Il nostro miglior comandante al fronte è, fuori di ogni dubbio, il generale Wilson. Ha adottato solo fra gli altri Provosti l’uniforme dei suoi propri alabardieri, sebbene quella bella vecchia foggia cinquecentesca non fosse originariamente destinata ad accompagnarsi a fedine rosse. Fu lui che, contro una difesa più ammirevole e disperata, irruppe ieri notte in Pump Street e la tenne per almeno mezz’ora. Ne fu poi espulso dal generale Turnbull, di Notting Hill, ma solo dopo una lotta disperata e la subitanea discesa di quella terribile oscurità che si dimostrò tanto più fatale alle forze del generale Buck e del generale Swindon.
“Il Provosto Wayne stesso, col quale ebbi, per grande fortuna, un interessantissimo colloquio, rese la più eloquente testimonianza alla condotta del generale Wilson e dei suoi uomini. Le sue precise parole sono le seguenti: ‘Ho comprato dolciumi nella sua buffa botteguccia quando avevo quattro anni, e da allora sempre. Non notai mai nulla, mi vergogno a dirlo, tranne che parlava col naso e non si lavava particolarmente. E ci venne addosso sulla barricata come un diavolo dall’inferno.’ Ripetei questo discorso al generale Wilson stesso, con qualche delicato miglioramento, ed egli parve compiaciuto. Non pare, tuttavia, compiaciuto di alcunché tanto in questo momento quanto lo è del portare una spada. Ho dal fronte, dalla migliore autorità, che il generale Wilson non era completamente rasato ieri. Nei circoli militari si crede che si stia facendo crescere i baffi…
“As I have said, there is nothing to report. I walk wearily to the pillar-box at the corner of Pembridge Road to post my copy. Nothing whatever has happened, except the preparations for a particularly long and feeble siege, during which I trust I shall not be required to be at the Front. As I glance up Pembridge Road in the growing dusk, the aspect of that road reminds me that there is one note worth adding. General Buck has suggested, with characteristic acumen, to General Wilson, that in order to obviate the possibility of such a catastrophe as overwhelmed the allied forces in the last advance on Notting Hill (the catastrophe, I mean, of the extinguished lamps), that each soldier should have a lighted lantern round his neck. This is one of the things which I really admire about General Buck. He possesses what people used to mean by ‘the humility of the man of science,’ that is, he learns steadily from his mistakes. Wayne may score off him in some other way, but not in that way. The lanterns look like fairy lights as they curve round the end of Pembridge Road.
“Later… I write with some difficulty, because the blood will run down my face and make patterns on the paper. Blood is a very beautiful thing; that is why it is concealed. If you ask me why blood runs down my face, I can only reply that I was kicked by a horse. If you ask me what horse, I can reply with some pride that it was a war-horse. If you ask me how a war-horse came on the scene in our simple pedestrian warfare, I am reduced to the necessity, so painful to a special correspondent, of recounting my experiences.
“I was, as I have said, in the very act of posting my copy at the pillar-box, and of glancing as I did so up the glittering curve of Pembridge Road, studded with the lights of Wilson’s men. I don’t know what made me pause to examine the matter, but I had a fancy that the line of lights, where it melted into the indistinct brown twilight, was more indistinct than usual. I was almost certain that in a certain stretch of the road where there had been five lights there were now only four. I strained my eyes; I counted them again, and there were only three. A moment after there were only two; an instant after only one; and an instant after that the lanterns near to me swung like jangled bells, as if struck suddenly. They flared and fell; and for the moment the fall of them was like the fall of the sun and stars out of heaven. It left everything in a primal blindness. As a matter of fact, the road was not yet legitimately dark. There were still red rays of a sunset in the sky, and the brown gloaming was still warmed, as it were, with a feeling as of firelight. But for three seconds after the lanterns swung and sank, I saw in front of me a blackness blocking the sky. And with the fourth second I knew that this blackness which blocked the sky was a man on a great horse; and I was trampled and tossed aside as a swirl of horsemen swept round the corner. As they turned I saw that they were not black but scarlet; they were a sortie of the besieged, Wayne riding ahead.
“I lifted myself from the gutter, blinded with blood from a very slight skin-wound, and, queerly enough, not caring either for the blindness or for the slightness of the wpund. For one mortal minute after that amazing cavalcade had spun past, there was dead stillness on the empty road. And then came Barker and all his halberdiers running like devils in the track of them. It had been their business to guard the gate by which the sortie had broken out; but they had not reckoned, and small blame to them, on cavalry. As it was, Barker and his men made a perfectly splendid run after them, almost catching Wayne’s horses by the tails.
“Nobody can understand the sortie. It consists only of a small number of Wayne’s garrison. Turnbull himself, with the vast mass of it, is undoubtedly still barricaded in Pump Street. Sorties of this kind are natural enough in the majority of historical sieges, such as the siege of Paris in 1870, because in such cases the besieged are certain of some support outside. But what can be the object of it in this case? Wayne knows (or if he is too mad to know anything, at least Turnbull knows) that there is not, and never has been, the smallest chance of support for him outside; that the mass of the sane modern inhabitants of London regard his farcical patriotism with as much contempt as they do the original idiotcy that gave it birth…the folly of our miserable King. What Wayne and his horsemen are doing nobody can even conjecture. The general theory round here is that he is simply a traitor, and has abandoned the besieged. But all such larger but yet more soluble riddles are as nothing compared to the one small but unanswerable riddle: Where did they get the horses?
“Later… I have heard a most extraordinary account of the origin of the appearance of the horses. It appears that that amazing person, General Turnbull, who is now ruling Pump Street in the absence of Wayne, sent out, on the morning of the declaration of war, a vast number of little boys (or cherubs of the gutter, as we pressmen say), with half-crowns in their pockets, to take cabs all over London. No less than a hundred and sixty cabs met at Pump Street; were commandeered by the garrison. The men were set free, the cabs used to make barricades, and the horses kept in Pump Street, where they were fed and exercised for several days, until they were sufficiently rapid and efficient to be used for this wild ride out of the town. If this is so, and I have it on the best possible authority, the method of the sortie is explained. But we have no explanation of its object. Just as Barker’s Blues were swinging round the corner after them, they were stopped, but not by an enemy; only by the voice of one man, and he a friend. Red Wilson of Bayswater ran alone along the main road like a madman waving them back with a halberd snatched from a sentinel. He was in supreme command, and Barker stopped at the corner, staring and bewildered. We could hear Wilson’s voice loud and distinct out of the dusk, so that it seemed strange that the great voice should come out of the little body. ‘Halt, South Kensington! Guard this entry, and prevent them returning. I will pursue. Forward, the Green Guards!’
“Come ho detto, non c’è nulla da riferire. Cammino stancamente alla buca delle lettere all’angolo di Pembridge Road per impostare la mia copia. Nulla di nulla è accaduto, tranne i preparativi per un assedio particolarmente lungo e fiacco, durante il quale confido di non essere richiesto al Fronte. Mentre alzo lo sguardo su Pembridge Road nel crepuscolo crescente, l’aspetto di quella strada mi ricorda che c’è una nota che vale la pena aggiungere. Il generale Buck ha suggerito, con caratteristico acume, al generale Wilson, che, per ovviare alla possibilità di una tale catastrofe come quella che travolse le forze alleate nell’ultima avanzata su Notting Hill (la catastrofe, intendo, dei lampioni spenti), ogni soldato dovrebbe avere una lanterna accesa attorno al collo. Questa è una delle cose che davvero ammiro nel generale Buck. Egli possiede ciò che una volta la gente intendeva per ‘l’umiltà dell’uomo di scienza,’ cioè, impara costantemente dai propri errori. Wayne potrà segnare punti su di lui in qualche altro modo, ma non in quello. Le lanterne paiono fuochi fatati mentre curvano attorno all’estremità di Pembridge Road.
“Più tardi… Scrivo con qualche difficoltà, perché il sangue mi cola sul viso e forma disegni sulla carta. Il sangue è una cosa bellissima; ecco perché è celato. Se mi chiedete perché il sangue mi cola sul viso, posso solo rispondere che sono stato preso a calci da un cavallo. Se mi chiedete quale cavallo, posso rispondere con un certo orgoglio che era un cavallo da guerra. Se mi chiedete come un cavallo da guerra sia comparso sulla scena nella nostra semplice guerra pedonale, sono ridotto alla necessità, così penosa per un corrispondente speciale, di raccontare le mie esperienze.
“Ero, come ho detto, proprio nell’atto d’impostare la mia copia alla buca delle lettere, e di guardare così facendo su per la scintillante curva di Pembridge Road, costellata dei lumi degli uomini di Wilson. Non so cosa mi fece sostare a esaminare la cosa, ma ebbi l’impressione che la linea dei lumi, là dove si dissolveva nell’indistinto crepuscolo bruno, fosse più indistinta del solito. Ero quasi certo che in un certo tratto della strada dove c’erano stati cinque lumi ora ce ne fossero solo quattro. Aguzzai gli occhi; li contai di nuovo, ed erano solo tre. Un attimo dopo erano solo due; un istante dopo solo uno; e un istante dopo ancora le lanterne vicino a me oscillarono come campane scosse, come colpite d’un tratto. Divamparono e caddero; e per un momento la loro caduta fu come la caduta del sole e delle stelle dal cielo. Lasciò ogni cosa in una cecità primordiale. In effetti, la strada non era ancora legittimamente buia. C’erano ancora rossi raggi di un tramonto nel cielo, e la bruna penombra era ancora tiepida, per così dire, con una sensazione come di fuoco di camino. Ma per tre secondi dopo che le lanterne oscillarono e sprofondarono, vidi davanti a me una nerezza che bloccava il cielo. E col quarto secondo capii che questa nerezza che bloccava il cielo era un uomo su un grande cavallo; e fui calpestato e scagliato di lato mentre un vortice di cavalieri irrompeva attorno all’angolo. Nel voltare vidi che non erano neri ma scarlatti; erano una sortita degli assediati, con Wayne che cavalcava in testa.
“Mi sollevai dalla cunetta, accecato dal sangue di una ferita cutanea assai lieve, e, cosa strana, senza curarmi né della cecità né della lievità della ferita. Per un mortale minuto dopo che quella stupefacente cavalcata era sfrecciata via, ci fu un silenzio di morte sulla strada vuota. E poi venne Barker e tutti i suoi alabardieri correndo come diavoli sulle loro tracce. Era stato loro compito custodire la porta dalla quale la sortita era irrotta; ma non avevano fatto i conti, e li si può ben scusare, con la cavalleria. Così com’era, Barker e i suoi uomini fecero una corsa perfettamente splendida al loro inseguimento, quasi afferrando i cavalli di Wayne per la coda.
“Nessuno riesce a capire la sortita. È composta solo di un piccolo numero della guarnigione di Wayne. Turnbull stesso, con la vasta massa di essa, è indubbiamente ancora barricato in Pump Street. Sortite di questo genere sono naturali abbastanza nella maggior parte degli assedi storici, come l’assedio di Parigi nel 1870, perché in tali casi gli assediati sono certi di un qualche sostegno all’esterno. Ma quale può essere lo scopo di essa in questo caso? Wayne sa (o se è troppo pazzo per sapere alcunché, almeno Turnbull lo sa) che non c’è, e non c’è mai stata, la minima probabilità di sostegno per lui all’esterno; che la massa dei sani abitanti moderni di Londra guarda al suo farsesco patriottismo con tanto disprezzo quanto guarda all’originaria idiozia che gli diede vita… la follia del nostro miserabile Re. Ciò che Wayne e i suoi cavalieri stiano facendo nessuno può nemmeno congetturare. La teoria generale da queste parti è che sia semplicemente un traditore, e abbia abbandonato gli assediati. Ma tutti questi enigmi più grandi e tuttavia più solubili sono un nulla se paragonati all’unico piccolo ma insolubile enigma: dove hanno preso i cavalli?
“Più tardi… Ho udito un resoconto straordinarissimo dell’origine della comparsa dei cavalli. Pare che quella stupefacente persona, il generale Turnbull, che ora governa Pump Street in assenza di Wayne, abbia mandato in giro, la mattina della dichiarazione di guerra, un vasto numero di ragazzini (o cherubini del rigagnolo, come diciamo noi giornalisti), con mezze corone in tasca, a prendere carrozze per tutta Londra. Non meno di centosessanta carrozze si radunarono in Pump Street; furono requisite dalla guarnigione. Gli uomini furono lasciati liberi, le carrozze usate per far barricate, e i cavalli tenuti in Pump Street, dove furono nutriti ed esercitati per parecchi giorni, finché non furono sufficientemente rapidi ed efficienti da essere usati per questa selvaggia cavalcata fuori dalla città. Se è così, e lo ho dalla migliore autorità possibile, il metodo della sortita è spiegato. Ma non abbiamo spiegazione del suo scopo. Proprio mentre i Blu di Barker stavano svoltando l’angolo dietro a loro, furono fermati, ma non da un nemico; solo dalla voce di un uomo, e un amico per giunta. Wilson il Rosso di Bayswater corse solo lungo la strada maestra come un pazzo respingendoli con un’alabarda strappata a una sentinella. Era al comando supremo, e Barker si fermò all’angolo, fissando e sbigottito. Potevamo udire la voce di Wilson forte e distinta uscire dal crepuscolo, sicché pareva strano che quella gran voce venisse fuori da quel piccolo corpo. ‘Alt, South Kensington! Custodite questo accesso, e impedite loro di tornare. Io inseguirò. Avanti, Guardie Verdi!’
“A wall of dark blue uniforms and a wood of pole-axes was between me and Wilson, for Barker’s men blocked the mouth of the road in two rigid lines. But through them and through the dusk I could hear the clear orders and the clank of arms, and see the green army of Wilson marching by towards the west. They were our great fighting-men. Wilson had filled them with his own fire; in a few days they had become veterans. Each of them wore a silver medal of a pump, to boast that they alone of all the allied armies had stood victorious in Pump Street.
“I managed to slip past the detachment of Barker’s Blues, who are guarding the end of Pembridge Road, and a sharp spell of running brought me to the tail of Wilson’s green army as it swung down the road in pursuit of the flying Wayne. The dusk had deepened into almost total darkness; for some time I only heard the throb of the marching pace. Then suddenly there was a cry, and the tall fighting men were flung back on me, almost crushing me, and again the lanterns swung and jingled and the cold nozzles of great horses pushed into the press of us. They had turned and charged us.
“‘You fools!’ came the voice of Wilson, cleaving our panic with a splendid cold anger; ‘Don’t you see? the horses have no riders!’
“It was true. We were being plunged at by a stampede of horses with empty saddles. What could it mean? Had Wayne met some of our men and been defeated? Or had he flung these horses at us as some kind of ruse or mad new mode of warfare, such as he seemed bent on inventing? Or did he and his men want to get away in disguise? Or did they want to hide in houses somewhere?
“Never did I admire any man’s intellect (even my own) so much as I did Wilson’s at that moment. Without a word, he simply pointed the halberd (which he still grasped) to the southern side of the road. As you know, the streets running up to the ridge of Campden Hill from the main road are peculiarly steep, they are more like sudden flights of stairs. We were just opposite Aubrey Road, the steepest of all; up that it would have been far more difficult to urge half-trained horses than to run up on one’s feet.
“‘Left wheel!’ hallooed Wilson. ‘They have gone up here,’ he added to me, who happened to be at his elbow.
“‘Why?’ I ventured to ask.
“‘Can’t say for certain,’ replied the Bayswater General. ‘They’ve gone up here in a great hurry anyhow. They’ve simply turned their horses loose, because they couldn’t take them up. I fancy I know. I fancy they’re trying to get over the ridge to Kensington or Hammersmith, or somewhere, and are striking up here because it’s just beyond the end of our line. Damned fools, not to have gone further along the road, though. They’ve only just shaved our last outpost. Lambert is hardly four hundred yards from here. And I’ve sent him word.’
“‘Lambert!’ I said. ‘Not young Wilfrid Lambert…my old friend.’
“‘Wilfrid Lambert’s his name,’ said the General; ‘used to be a “man about town”; silly fellow with a big nose. That kind of man always volunteers for some war or other. And what’s funnier, he generally isn’t half bad at it, Lambert is distinctly good. The yellow West Kensingtons I always reckoned the weakest part of the army; but he has pulled them together uncommonly well, though he’s subordinate to Swindon, who’s a donkey. In the attack from Pembridge Road the other night he showed great pluck.’
“‘He has shown greater pluck than that,’ I said. ‘He has criticized my sense of humour. That was his first engagement.’
“This remark was, I am sorry to say, lost on the admirable commander of the allied forces. We were in the act of climbing the last half of Aubrey Road, which is so abrupt a slope that it looked like an old-fashioned map leaning up against the wall. There are lines of little trees, one above the other, as in the old-fashioned map.
“We reached the top of it, panting somewhat, and were just about to turn the corner by a place called (in chivalrous anticipation of our wars of sword and axe) Tower Crecy, when we were suddenly knocked in the stomach (I can use no other term) by a horde of men hurled back upon us. They wore the red uniform of Wayne; their halberds were broken; their foreheads bleeding; but the mere impetus of their retreat staggered us as we stood at the last ridge of the slope,
“‘Good old Lambert!’ yelled out, suddenly, the stolid Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, in an uncontrollable excitement. ‘Damned Jolly old Lambert! He’s got there already! He’s driving them back on us! Hurrah! hurrah! Forward the Green Guards!’
“We swung round the corner eastwards, Wilson running first, brandishing the halberd.
“Will you pardon a little egotism? Every one likes a little egotism, when it takes the form, as mine does in this case, of a disgraceful confession. The thing is really a little interesting, because it shows how the merely artistic habit has bitten into men like me. It was the most intensely exciting occurrence that had ever come to me in my life; and I was really intensely excited about it. And yet, as we turned that corner, the first impression I had was of something that had nothing to do with the fight at all. I was stricken from the sky as by a thunderbolt, by the height of the Waterworks Tower on Campden Hill. I don’t know whether Londoners generally realize how high it looks when one comes out, in this way, almost immediately under it. For the second it seemed to me that at the foot of it even human war was a triviality. For the second I felt as if I had been drunk with some trivial orgie, and that I had been sobered by the shock of that shadow. A moment afterwards, I realized that under it was going on something more enduring than stone, and something wilder than the dizziest height…the agony of man. And I knew that compared to that, this overwhelming tower was itself a triviality; it was a mere stalk of stone which humanity could snap like a stick.
“Un muro di uniformi blu scuro e un bosco di scuri d’arme era fra me e Wilson, giacché gli uomini di Barker bloccavano la bocca della strada in due file rigide. Ma attraverso di loro e attraverso il crepuscolo potevo udire gli ordini chiari e il cozzare delle armi, e vedere il verde esercito di Wilson marciare verso ovest. Erano i nostri grandi combattenti. Wilson li aveva riempiti del suo proprio fuoco; in pochi giorni erano diventati veterani. Ognuno di essi portava una medaglia d’argento raffigurante una pompa, per vantarsi che essi soli di tutti gli eserciti alleati erano rimasti vittoriosi in Pump Street.
“Riuscii a sgusciare oltre il distaccamento dei Blu di Barker, che custodiscono l’estremità di Pembridge Road, e un serrato tratto di corsa mi portò alla coda del verde esercito di Wilson mentre calava per la strada all’inseguimento del fuggente Wayne. Il crepuscolo si era addensato in un’oscurità quasi totale; per qualche tempo udii solo il pulsare del passo di marcia. Poi d’un tratto ci fu un grido, e gli alti combattenti furono respinti addosso a me, quasi schiacciandomi, e di nuovo le lanterne oscillarono e tintinnarono e le fredde froge di grandi cavalli si spinsero nella calca di noi. Si erano voltati e ci avevano caricati.
“‘Sciocchi!’ venne la voce di Wilson, fendendo il nostro panico con una splendida fredda ira; ‘Non vedete? i cavalli non hanno cavalieri!’
“Era vero. Eravamo travolti da una fuga precipitosa di cavalli dalle selle vuote. Cosa poteva significare? Aveva Wayne incontrato alcuni dei nostri uomini ed era stato sconfitto? O ci aveva scagliato questi cavalli come qualche sorta di stratagemma o folle nuovo modo di guerra, tale quale sembrava intento a inventare? O egli e i suoi uomini volevano svignarsela travestiti? O volevano nascondersi in qualche casa?
“Mai ammirai l’intelletto di alcun uomo (nemmeno il mio) quanto ammirai quello di Wilson in quell’istante. Senza una parola, egli puntò semplicemente l’alabarda (che ancora impugnava) verso il lato meridionale della strada. Come sapete, le strade che salgono al crinale di Campden Hill dalla strada maestra sono singolarmente ripide, sono più simili a improvvise rampe di scale. Eravamo giusto di fronte ad Aubrey Road, la più ripida di tutte; su per quella sarebbe stato assai più difficile spingere cavalli mezzo addestrati che salire di corsa a piedi.
“‘Conversione a sinistra!’ urlò Wilson. ‘Sono saliti quassù,’ aggiunse a me, che mi trovavo per caso al suo fianco.
“‘Perché?’ arrischiai di chiedere.
“‘Non saprei dirlo con certezza,’ rispose il generale di Bayswater. ‘Sono saliti quassù in gran fretta, comunque. Hanno semplicemente lasciato liberi i loro cavalli, perché non potevano portarli su. Credo di sapere. Credo che stiano cercando di valicare il crinale verso Kensington o Hammersmith, o dovunque, e stiano puntando su qui perché è appena oltre l’estremità della nostra linea. Maledetti sciocchi, a non essere andati oltre lungo la strada, però. Hanno appena rasentato il nostro ultimo avamposto. Lambert è a malapena a quattrocento metri da qui. E gli ho mandato avviso.’
“‘Lambert!’ dissi. ‘Non il giovane Wilfrid Lambert… il mio vecchio amico.’
“‘Wilfrid Lambert è il suo nome,’ disse il generale; ‘era un “uomo di mondo”; sciocco tizio con un gran naso. Quel tipo d’uomo si offre sempre volontario per qualche guerra o altro. E cosa più buffa, di solito non è affatto male a farla, Lambert è decisamente bravo. I gialli di West Kensington li ho sempre stimati la parte più debole dell’esercito; ma lui li ha rimessi insieme insolitamente bene, sebbene sia subordinato a Swindon, che è un somaro. Nell’attacco da Pembridge Road l’altra notte mostrò gran fegato.’
“‘Ha mostrato fegato maggiore di quello,’ dissi. ‘Ha criticato il mio senso dell’umorismo. Quello fu il suo primo scontro.’
“Questa osservazione andò, mi spiace dirlo, perduta sull’ammirevole comandante delle forze alleate. Eravamo nell’atto di scalare l’ultima metà di Aubrey Road, che è un pendio così ripido che sembrava una carta geografica all’antica appoggiata contro il muro. Ci sono file di alberelli, uno sopra l’altro, come nella carta geografica all’antica.
“Ne raggiungemmo la cima, ansando alquanto, ed eravamo giusto sul punto di svoltare l’angolo presso un luogo chiamato (in cavalleresca anticipazione delle nostre guerre di spada e ascia) Tower Crécy, quando fummo d’un tratto colpiti allo stomaco (non posso usare altro termine) da un’orda di uomini scagliati indietro su di noi. Portavano l’uniforme rossa di Wayne; le loro alabarde erano spezzate; le loro fronti sanguinanti; ma la mera spinta della loro ritirata ci fece barcollare mentre stavamo all’ultimo dosso del pendio,
“‘Bravo vecchio Lambert!’ urlò d’un tratto lo stolido signor Wilson di Bayswater, in un’eccitazione incontenibile. ‘Maledettamente gioviale vecchio Lambert! È già arrivato lassù! Li sta ricacciando su di noi! Urrà! urrà! Avanti le Guardie Verdi!’
“Svoltammo l’angolo verso est, con Wilson che correva per primo, brandendo l’alabarda.
“Vorrete perdonare un po’ di egotismo? A tutti piace un po’ di egotismo, quando prende la forma, come la mia in questo caso, di una confessione vergognosa. La cosa è davvero un poco interessante, perché mostra come la mera abitudine artistica abbia morso uomini come me. Fu l’avvenimento più intensamente eccitante che mai mi fosse capitato in vita mia; ed ero davvero intensamente eccitato per esso. E tuttavia, mentre svoltavamo quell’angolo, la prima impressione che ebbi fu di qualcosa che non aveva nulla a che fare con la lotta. Fui colpito dal cielo come da un fulmine, dall’altezza della Torre dell’Acquedotto su Campden Hill. Non so se i londinesi in genere si rendano conto di quanto alta appaia quando si esce, in questo modo, quasi immediatamente sotto di essa. Per un secondo mi parve che ai suoi piedi persino la guerra umana fosse una banalità. Per un secondo mi sentii come se fossi stato ebbro di qualche futile orgia, e come se fossi stato dissetato dallo shock di quell’ombra. Un momento dopo, mi resi conto che sotto di essa si svolgeva qualcosa di più duraturo della pietra, e qualcosa di più selvaggio della più vertiginosa altezza… l’agonia dell’uomo. E capii che paragonata a quella, questa torre soverchiante era essa stessa una banalità; era un mero stelo di pietra che l’umanità avrebbe potuto spezzare come un bastoncino.
“I don’t know why I have talked so much about this silly old Waterworks Tower, which at the very best was only a tremendous background. It was that, certainly, a sombre and awful landscape, against which our figures were relieved. But I think the real reason was, that there was in my own mind so sharp a transition from the tower of stone to the man of flesh. For what I saw first when I had shaken off, as it were, the shadow of the tower, was a man, and a man I knew.
“Lambert stood at the further corner of the street that curved round the tower, his figure outlined in some degree by the beginning of moonrise. He looked magnificent, a hero; but he looked something much more interesting than that. He was, as it happened, in almost precisely the same swaggering attitude in which he had stood nearly fifteen years ago, when he swung his walking-stick and struck it into the ground, and told me that all my subtlety was drivel. And, upon my soul, I think he required more courage to say that than to fight as he does now. For then he was fighting against something that was in the ascendant, fashionable, and victorious. And now he is fighting (at the risk of his life, no doubt) merely against something which is already dead, which is impossible, futile; of which nothing has been more impossible and futile than this very sortie which has brought him into contact with it. People nowadays allow infinitely too little for the psychological sense of victory as a factor in affairs. Then he was attacking the degraded but undoubtedly victorious Quin; now he is attacking the interesting but totally extinguished Wayne.
“His name recalls me to the details of the scene. The facts were these. A line of red halberdiers, headed by Wayne, were marching up the street, close under the northern wall, which is, in fact, the bottom of a sort of dyke or fortification of the Waterworks. Lambert and his yellow West Kensingtons had that instant swept round the corner and had shaken the Waynites heavily, hurling back a few of the more timid, as I have just described, into our very arms. When our force struck the tail of Wayne’s, every one knew that all was up with him. His favourite military barber was struck down. His grocer was stunned. He himself was hurt in the thigh, and reeled back against the wall. We had him in a trap with two jaws. ‘Is that you?’ shouted Lambert, genially, to Wilson, across the hemmed-in host of Notting Hill. ‘That’s about the ticket,’ replied General Wilson; ‘keep them under the wall.’
“The men of Notting Hill were falling fast. Adam Wayne threw up his long arms to the wall above him, and with a spring stood upon it, a gigantic figure against the moon. He tore the banner put of the hands of the standard-bearer below him, and shook it out suddenly above our heads, so that it was like thunder in the heavens.
“‘Round the Red Lion!’ he cried. ‘Swords round the Red Lion! Halberds round the Red Lion! They are the thorns round the rose.’
“His voice and the crack of the banner made a momentary rally, and Lambert, whose idiotic face was almost beautiful with battle, felt it as by an instinct, and cried”
“‘Drop your public-house flag, you footler! Drop it!’
“‘The banner of the Red Lion seldom stoops,’ said Wayne, proudly, letting it out luxuriantly on the night wind.
“The next moment I knew that poor Adam’s sentimental theatricality had cost him much. Lambert was on the wall at a bound, his sword in his teeth, and had slashed at Wayne’s head before he had time to draw his sword, his hands being busy with the enormous flag. He stepped back only just in time to avoid the first cut, and let the flag-staff fall, so that the spear-blade at the end of it pointed to Lambert.
“‘The banner stoops,’ cried Wayne, in a voice that must have startled streets. ‘The banner of Notting Hill stoops to a hero.’ And with the words he drove the spear-point and half the flag-staff through Lambert’s body and dropped him dead upon the road below, a stone upon the stones of the street.
“‘Notting Hill! Notting Hill!’ cried Wayne, in a sort of divine rage. ‘Her banner is all the holier for the blood of a brave enemy! Up on the wall, patriots! Up on the wall! Notting Hill!’
“With his long strong arm he actually dragged a man up on to the wall to be silhouetted against the moon, and more and more men climbed up there, pulled themselves and were pulled, till clusters and crowds of the half-massacred men of Pump Street massed upon the wall above us.
“‘Notting Hill! Notting Hill!’ cried Wayne, unceasingly.
“‘Well, what about Bayswater?’ said a worthy working-man in Wilson’s army, irritably. ‘Bayswater for ever!’
“‘We have won!’ cried Wayne, striking his flag-staff in the ground. ‘Bayswater for ever! We have taught our enemies patriotism!’
“‘Oh, cut these fellows up and have done with it!’ cried one of Lambert’s lieutenants, who was reduced to something bordering on madness by the responsibility of succeeding to the command.
“‘Let us by all means try,’ said Wilson, grimly; and the two armies closed round the third.
”… . .
“I simply cannot describe what followed. I am sorry, but there is such a thing as physical fatigue, as physical nausea, and, I may add, as physical terror. Suffice it to say that the above paragraph was written about 11 p.m., and that it is now about 2 a.m., and that the battle is not finished, and is not likely to be. Suffice it further to say that down the steep streets which lead from the Waterworks Tower to the Notting Hill High Road, blood has been running, and is running, in great red serpents, that curl out into the main thoroughfare and shine in the moon.
“Non so perché ho parlato tanto di questa sciocca vecchia Torre dell’Acquedotto, che nel migliore dei casi era solo un tremendo sfondo. Lo era, di certo, un paesaggio cupo e terribile, contro il quale le nostre figure si stagliavano. Ma credo che la vera ragione fosse che c’era nella mia mente un passaggio così brusco dalla torre di pietra all’uomo di carne. Perché ciò che vidi per primo quando ebbi scrollato via, per così dire, l’ombra della torre, fu un uomo, e un uomo che conoscevo.
“Lambert stava all’angolo più lontano della strada che curvava attorno alla torre, la sua figura delineata in qualche misura dal principio del sorgere della luna. Appariva magnifico, un eroe; ma appariva qualcosa di assai più interessante di ciò. Era, come càpitava, quasi esattamente nella stessa spavalda posa nella quale era stato quasi quindici anni fa, quando fece roteare il bastone da passeggio e lo conficcò nel terreno, e mi disse che tutta la mia sottigliezza era fandonia. E, sull’anima mia, credo che gli occorresse più coraggio a dire quello che a combattere come fa ora. Perché allora combatteva contro qualcosa che era in ascesa, alla moda, e vittorioso. E ora combatte (a rischio della vita, senza dubbio) meramente contro qualcosa che è già morto, che è impossibile, futile; di cui nulla è stato più impossibile e futile di questa stessa sortita che lo ha portato a contatto con esso. La gente oggigiorno concede infinitamente troppo poco al senso psicologico della vittoria come fattore negli affari. Allora egli attaccava il degradato ma indubbiamente vittorioso Quin; ora attacca l’interessante ma totalmente estinto Wayne.
“Il suo nome mi richiama ai particolari della scena. I fatti erano questi. Una linea di alabardieri rossi, guidata da Wayne, marciava su per la strada, rasente il muro settentrionale, che è, di fatto, il fondo di una specie di fossato o fortificazione dell’Acquedotto. Lambert e i suoi gialli di West Kensington avevano in quell’istante svoltato l’angolo e avevano scosso pesantemente i waynisti, ricacciando indietro alcuni dei più timidi, come ho appena descritto, proprio fra le nostre braccia. Quando la nostra forza colpì la coda di quella di Wayne, tutti sapevano che tutto era finito per lui. Il suo barbiere militare prediletto fu abbattuto. Il suo droghiere fu stordito. Egli stesso fu ferito alla coscia, e barcollò indietro contro il muro. Lo avevamo in trappola con due ganasce. ‘Sei tu?’ gridò Lambert, gioviale, a Wilson, attraverso la schiera accerchiata di Notting Hill. ‘Ci siamo quasi,’ rispose il generale Wilson; ‘teneteli sotto il muro.’
“Gli uomini di Notting Hill cadevano rapidamente. Adam Wayne gettò le lunghe braccia al muro sopra di lui, e con un balzo vi stette sopra, figura gigantesca contro la luna. Strappò lo stendardo dalle mani del portabandiera sotto di lui, e lo spiegò d’un tratto sopra le nostre teste, sicché fu come tuono nei cieli.
“‘Attorno al Leone Rosso!’ gridò. ‘Spade attorno al Leone Rosso! Alabarde attorno al Leone Rosso! Sono le spine attorno alla rosa.’
“La sua voce e lo schiocco dello stendardo fecero un momentaneo raduno, e Lambert, il cui volto idiota era quasi bello di battaglia, lo sentì come per istinto, e gridò—
“‘Ammaina la tua bandiera da osteria, scemo! Ammainala!’
“‘Lo stendardo del Leone Rosso raramente si china,’ disse Wayne, con orgoglio, lasciandolo dispiegare rigoglioso nel vento della notte.
“Il momento dopo capii che la sentimentale teatralità del povero Adam gli era costata cara. Lambert fu sul muro con un balzo, la spada fra i denti, e aveva vibrato un fendente alla testa di Wayne prima che avesse tempo di sguainare la propria spada, avendo le mani occupate con l’enorme bandiera. Fece un passo indietro appena in tempo per schivare il primo colpo, e lasciò cadere l’asta della bandiera, sicché la lama a picca all’estremità di essa si puntò verso Lambert.
“‘Lo stendardo si china,’ gridò Wayne, con una voce che deve aver fatto trasalire le strade. ‘Lo stendardo di Notting Hill si china a un eroe.’ E con queste parole spinse la punta della picca e metà dell’asta della bandiera attraverso il corpo di Lambert e lo abbatté morto sulla strada sottostante, una pietra sulle pietre della strada.
“‘Notting Hill! Notting Hill!’ gridò Wayne, in una specie di divina furia. ‘Il suo stendardo è tanto più sacro per il sangue di un nemico valoroso! Su per il muro, patrioti! Su per il muro! Notting Hill!’
“Col suo lungo braccio robusto trascinò letteralmente un uomo su per il muro perché si stagliasse contro la luna, e sempre più uomini vi si arrampicarono, tirandosi su ed essendo tirati, finché grappoli e folle degli uomini semi-massacrati di Pump Street si ammassarono sul muro sopra di noi.
“‘Notting Hill! Notting Hill!’ gridava Wayne, senza posa.
“‘Ma insomma, e Bayswater?’ disse un degno operaio nell’ esercito di Wilson, irritato. ‘Bayswater per sempre!’
“‘Abbiamo vinto!’ gridò Wayne, conficcando l’asta della bandiera nel terreno. ‘Bayswater per sempre! Abbiamo insegnato ai nostri nemici il patriottismo!’
“‘Oh, fate a pezzi questi tizi e finiamola!’ gridò uno dei luogotenenti di Lambert, ridotto a qualcosa che rasentava la follia dalla responsabilità di succedere al comando.
“‘Proviamoci pure con ogni mezzo,’ disse Wilson, cupamente; e i due eserciti si serrarono attorno al terzo.
”… . .
“Semplicemente non riesco a descrivere ciò che seguì. Mi spiace, ma esiste una cosa come la stanchezza fisica, come la nausea fisica, e, posso aggiungere, come il terrore fisico. Basti dire che il paragrafo di sopra fu scritto verso le 11 di sera, e che ora sono circa le 2 del mattino, e che la battaglia non è finita, e non è probabile che lo sia. Basti dire inoltre che giù per le ripide strade che scendono dalla Torre dell’Acquedotto alla Notting Hill High Road, il sangue è corso, e corre, in grandi serpenti rossi, che si arricciano fuori nella via maestra e brillano nella luna.
“Later… The final touch has been given to all this terrible futility. Hours have passed; morning has broken; men are still swaying and fighting at the foot of the tower and round the corner of Aubrey Road; the fight has not finished. But I know it is a farce.
“News has just come to show that Wayne’s amazing sortie, followed by the amazing resistance through a whole night on the wall of the Waterworks, is as if it had not been. What was the object of that strange exodus we shall probably never know, for the simple reason that every one who knew will probably be cut to pieces in the course of the next two or three hours.
“I have heard, about three minutes ago, that Buck and Buck’s methods have won after all. He was perfectly right, of course, when one comes to think of it, in holding that it was physically impossible for a street to defeat a city. While we thought he was patrolling the eastern gates with his Purple army; while we were rushing about the streets and waving halberds and lanterns; while poor old Wilson was scheming like Moltke and fighting like Achilles to entrap the wild Provost of Notting Hill…Mr. Buck, retired draper, has simply driven down in a hansom cab and done something about as plain as butter and about as useful and nasty. He has gone down to South Kensington, Brompton, and Fulham, and by spending about four thousand pounds of his private means, has raised an army of nearly, as many men; that is to say, an army big enough to beat, not only Wayne, but Wayne and all his present enemies put together. The army, I understand, is encamped along High Street, Kensington, and fills it from the Church to Addison Road Bridge. It is to advance by ten different roads uphill to the north.
“I cannot endure to remain here. Everything makes it worse than it need be. The dawn, for instance, has broken round Campden Hill; splendid spaces of silver, edged with gold, are torn out of the sky. Worse still, Wayne and his men feel the dawn; their faces, though bloody and pale, are strangely hopeful… insupportably pathetic. Worst of all, for the moment they are winning. If it were not for Buck and the new army they might just, and only just, win.
“I repeat, I cannot stand it. It is like watching that wonderful play of old Maeterlinck’s (you know my partiality for the healthy, jolly old authors of the nineteenth century), in which one has to watch the quiet conduct of people inside a parlour, while knowing that the very men are outside the door whose word can blast it all with tragedy. And this is worse, for the men are not talking, but writhing and bleeding and dropping dead for a thing that is already settled…and settled against them. The great grey masses of men still toil and tug and sway hither and thither around the great grey tower; and the tower is still motionless, as it will always be motionless. These men will be crushed before the sun is set; and new men will arise and be crushed, and new wrongs done, and tyranny will always rise again like the sun, and injustice will always be as fresh as the flowers of spring. And the stone tower will always look down on it. Matter, in its brutal beauty, will always look down on those who are mad enough to consent to die, and yet more mad, since they consent to live.”
Thus ended abruptly the first and last contribution of the Special Correspondent of the Court Journal to that valued periodical.
The Correspondent himself, as has been said, was simply sick and gloomy at the last news of the triumph of Buck. He slouched sadly down the steep Aubrey Road, up which he had the night before run in so unusual an excitement, and strolled out into the empty dawn-lit main road, looking vaguely for a cab. He saw nothing in the vacant space except a blue-and-gold glittering thing, running very fast, which looked at first like a very tall beetle, but turned out, to his great astonishment, to be Barker.
“Have you heard the good news?” asked that gentleman.
“Yes,” said Quin, with a measured voice. “I have heard the glad tidings of great joy. Shall we take a hansom down to Kensington? I see one over there.”
They took the cab, and, were, in four minutes, fronting the ranks of the multitudinous and invincible army. Quin had not spoken a word all the way, and something about him had prevented the essentially impressionable Barker from speaking either.
The great army, as it moved up Kensington High Street, calling many heads to the numberless windows, for it was long indeed…longer than the lives of most of the tolerably young…since such an army had been seen in London. Compared with the vast organization which was now swallowing up the miles, with Buck at its head as leader, and the King hanging at its tail as journalist, the whole story of our problem was insignificant. In the presence of that army the red Notting Hills and the green Bayswaters were alike tiny and straggling groups. In its presence the whole struggle round Pump Street was like an ant-hill under the hoof of an ox. Every man who felt or looked at that infinity of men knew that it was the triumph of Buck’s brutal arithmetic. Whether Wayne was right or wrong, wise or foolish, was quite a fair matter for discussion. But it was a matter of history. At the foot of Church Street, opposite Kensington Church, they paused in their glowing good humour.
“Let us send some kind of messenger or herald up to them,” said Buck, turning to Barker and the King. “Let us send and ask them to cave in without more muddle.”
“What shall we say to them?” said Barker, doubtfully.
“The facts of the case are quite sufficient,” rejoined Buck. “It is the facts of the case that make an army surrender. Let us simply say that our army that is fighting their army, and their army that is fighting our army, amount altogether to about a thousand men. Say that we have four thousand. It is very simple. Of the thousand fighting, they have at the very most, three hundred, so that, with those three hundred, they have now to fight four thousand seven hundred men. Let them do it if it amuses them.”
“Più tardi… Il tocco finale è stato dato a tutta questa terribile futilità. Le ore sono passate; il mattino è spuntato; gli uomini ancora ondeggiano e combattono ai piedi della torre e attorno all’angolo di Aubrey Road; la lotta non è finita. Ma so che è una farsa.
“È giunta or ora notizia a mostrare che la stupefacente sortita di Wayne, seguita dalla stupefacente resistenza per un’intera notte sul muro dell’Acquedotto, è come se non fosse mai stata. Quale fosse lo scopo di quello strano esodo probabilmente non lo sapremo mai, per la semplice ragione che chiunque lo sapesse sarà probabilmente fatto a pezzi nel corso delle prossime due o tre ore.
“Ho udito, circa tre minuti fa, che Buck e i metodi di Buck hanno vinto dopotutto. Aveva perfettamente ragione, s’intende, a ben pensarci, nel sostenere che era fisicamente impossibile per una strada sconfiggere una città. Mentre credevamo che pattugliasse le porte orientali col suo esercito Purpureo; mentre noi ci precipitavamo per le strade agitando alabarde e lanterne; mentre il povero vecchio Wilson tramava come Moltke e combatteva come Achille per intrappolare il selvaggio Provosto di Notting Hill… il signor Buck, merciaio a riposo, ha semplicemente sceso in carrozza da nolo e ha fatto qualcosa di piatto come il burro e altrettanto utile e sgradevole. È sceso a South Kensington, Brompton e Fulham, e spendendo circa quattromila sterline dei suoi mezzi privati, ha levato un esercito di quasi altrettanti uomini; vale a dire, un esercito abbastanza grande da battere, non solo Wayne, ma Wayne e tutti i suoi presenti nemici messi insieme. L’esercito, a quanto capisco, è accampato lungo High Street, Kensington, e la riempie dalla Chiesa al Ponte di Addison Road. Deve avanzare per dieci strade diverse in salita verso nord.
“Non posso sopportare di restare qui. Ogni cosa la rende peggiore di quanto occorra. L’alba, per esempio, è spuntata attorno a Campden Hill; splendidi spazi d’argento, orlati d’oro, sono strappati dal cielo. Peggio ancora, Wayne e i suoi uomini sentono l’alba; i loro volti, per quanto insanguinati e pallidi, sono stranamente pieni di speranza… insopportabilmente patetici. Peggio di tutto, per il momento stanno vincendo. Se non fosse per Buck e il nuovo esercito potrebbero appena, e appena appena, vincere.
“Ripeto, non lo posso sopportare. È come guardare quel meraviglioso dramma del vecchio Maeterlinck (conoscete la mia predilezione per i sani, gioviali vecchi autori del diciannovesimo secolo), nel quale si deve guardare la quieta condotta di persone dentro un salotto, pur sapendo che proprio gli uomini la cui parola può far esplodere tutto in tragedia sono fuori dalla porta. E questo è peggio, perché gli uomini non parlano, ma si contorcono e sanguinano e cadono morti per una cosa che è già decisa… e decisa contro di loro. Le grandi grigie masse di uomini ancora s’affaticano e si strattonano e ondeggiano qua e là attorno alla grande grigia torre; e la torre è ancora immobile, come sarà sempre immobile. Questi uomini saranno schiacciati prima che il sole tramonti; e nuovi uomini sorgeranno e saranno schiacciati, e nuovi torti fatti, e la tirannia sempre risorgerà come il sole, e l’ingiustizia sarà sempre fresca come i fiori di primavera. E la torre di pietra sempre guarderà dall’alto su di essa. La materia, nella sua brutale bellezza, sempre guarderà dall’alto su coloro che sono tanto pazzi da acconsentire a morire, e ancor più pazzi, poiché acconsentono a vivere.”
Così finì bruscamente il primo e ultimo contributo del Corrispondente Speciale del Court Journal a quel pregiato periodico.
Il Corrispondente stesso, come s’è detto, era semplicemente nauseato e cupo all’ultima notizia del trionfo di Buck. Scese sconsolato la ripida Aubrey Road, su per la quale aveva la notte precedente corso in così insolita eccitazione, e uscì girovagando nella vuota strada maestra illuminata dall’alba, cercando vagamente una carrozza. Non vide nulla nello spazio deserto tranne una cosa scintillante d’azzurro e oro, che correva velocissima, che a prima vista sembrava uno scarafaggio altissimo, ma si rivelò, con suo grande stupore, essere Barker.
“Avete sentito la buona notizia?” chiese quel signore.
“Sì,” disse Quin, con voce misurata. “Ho udito il lieto annuncio di gran gioia. Prendiamo una carrozza per Kensington? Ne vedo una laggiù.”
Presero la carrozza, e furono, in quattro minuti, di fronte alle file del moltitudinario e invincibile esercito. Quin non aveva pronunciato parola per tutto il tragitto, e qualcosa in lui aveva impedito all’essenzialmente impressionabile Barker di parlare a sua volta.
Il grande esercito, mentre risaliva Kensington High Street, richiamava molte teste alle innumerevoli finestre, perché era lungo davvero… più lungo delle vite di quasi tutti i discretamente giovani… da quando un tale esercito si era visto a Londra. Paragonata alla vasta organizzazione che ora inghiottiva i miglia, con Buck alla sua testa come condottiero, e il Re penzolante alla sua coda come giornalista, l’intera storia del nostro problema era insignificante. Al cospetto di quell’esercito le rosse Notting Hill e le verdi Bayswater erano ugualmente minuscoli e sparuti gruppi. Al suo cospetto l’intera lotta attorno a Pump Street era come un formicaio sotto lo zoccolo di un bue. Ogni uomo che sentì o guardò quell’infinità di uomini seppe che era il trionfo della brutale aritmetica di Buck. Se Wayne avesse ragione o torto, fosse saggio o sciocco, era del tutto una lecita materia di discussione. Ma era una questione di storia. Ai piedi di Church Street, di fronte alla Chiesa di Kensington, si fermarono nel loro raggiante buon umore.
“Mandiamo su da loro una specie di messaggero o araldo,” disse Buck, voltandosi verso Barker e il Re. “Mandiamo a chiedere loro di cedere senza ulteriore confusione.”
“Cosa diremo loro?” disse Barker, dubbioso.
“I fatti del caso sono del tutto sufficienti,” ribatté Buck. “Sono i fatti del caso che fanno arrendere un esercito. Diciamo semplicemente che il nostro esercito che sta combattendo il loro esercito, e il loro esercito che sta combattendo il nostro esercito, ammontano in tutto a circa un migliaio di uomini. Diciamo che noi ne abbiamo quattromila. È molto semplice. Dei mille che combattono, loro ne hanno al massimo trecento, sicché, con quei trecento, devono ora combattere quattromila settecento uomini. Che lo facciano se li diverte.”
And the Provost of North Kensington laughed.
The herald who was dispatched up Church Street in all the pomp of the South Kensington blue and gold, with the Three Birds on his tabard, was attended by two trumpeters.
“What will they do when they consent?” asked Barker, for the sake of saying something in the sudden stillness of that immense army.
“I know my Wayne very well,” said Buck, laughing. “When he submits he will send a red herald flaming with the Lion of Notting Hill. Even defeat will be delightful to him, since it is formal and romantic.”
The King, who had strolled up to the head of the line, broke silence for the first time.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, “if he defied you, and didn’t send the herald after all. I don’t think you do know your Wayne quite so well as you think.”
“All right, your Majesty,” said Buck, easily; “if it isn’t disrespectful, I’ll put my political calculations in a very simple form. I’ll lay you ten pounds to a shilling the herald comes with the surrender.”
“All right,” said Auberon. “I may be wrong, but it’s my notion of Adam Wayne that he’ll die in his city, and that, till he is dead, it will not be a safe property.”
“The bet’s made, your Majesty,” said Buck.
Another long silence ensued, in the course of which Barker alone, amid the motionless army, strolled and stamped in his restless way.
Then Buck suddenly leant forward.
“It’s taking your money, your Majesty,” he said. “I knew it was. There comes the herald from Adam Wayne.”
“It’s not,” cried the King, peering forward also. “You brute, it’s a red omnibus.”
“It’s not,” said Buck, calmly; and the King did not answer, for down the centre of the spacious and silent Church Street was walking, beyond question, the herald of the Red Lion, with two trumpeters.
Buck had something in him which taught him how to be magnanimous. In his hour of success he felt magnanimous towards Wayne, whom he really admired; magnanimous towards the King, off whom he had scored so publicly; and, above all, magnanimous towards Barker, who was the titular leader of this vast South Kensington army, which his own talent had evoked.
“General Barker,” he said, bowing, “do you propose now to receive the message from the besieged?”
Barker bowed also, and advanced towards the herald.
“Has your master, Mr. Adam Wayne, received our request for surrender?” he asked.
The herald conveyed a solemn and respectful affirmative.
Barker resumed, coughing slightly, but encouraged.
“What answer does your master send?”
The herald again inclined himself submissively, and answered in a kind of monotone.
“My message is this. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, under the charter of King Auberon and the laws of God and all mankind, free and of a free city, greets James Barker, Lord High Provost of South Kensington, by the same rights free and honourable, leader of the army of the South. With all friendly reverence, and with all constitutional consideration, he desires James Barker to lay down his arms, and the whole army under his command to lay down their arms also.”
Before the words were ended the King had run forward into the open space with shining eyes. The rest of the staff and the forefront of the army were literally struck breathless. When they recovered they began to laugh beyond restraint; the revulsion was too sudden.
“The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill,” continued the herald, “does not propose, in the event of your surrender, to use his victory for any of those repressive purposes which others have entertained against him. He will leave you your free laws and your free cities, your flags and your governments. He will not destroy the religion of South Kensington, or crush the old customs of Bayswater.”
An irrepressible explosion of laughter went up from the fore front of the great army.
“The King must have had something to do with this humour,” said Buck, slapping his thigh. “It’s too deliciously insolent. Barker, have a glass of wine.”
And in his conviviality he actually sent a soldier across to the restaurant opposite the church and brought out two glasses for a toast.
When the laughter had died down, the herald continued quite monotonously:
“In the event of your surrendering your arms and dispersing under the superintendence ot our forces, these local rights of yours shall be carefully observed. In the event of your not doing so, the Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires to announce that he has just captured the Waterworks Tower, just above you, on Campden Hill, and that within ten minutes from now, that is, on the reception through me of your refusal, he will open the great reservoir and flood the whole valley where you stand in thirty feet of water. God save King Auberon!”
Buck had dropped his glass and sent a great splash of wine over the road.
“But…but…” he said; and then by a last and splendid effort of his great sanity, looked the facts in the face.
“We must surrender,” he said. “You could do nothing against fifty thousand tons of water coming down a steep hill, ten minutes hence. We must surrender. Our four thousand men might as well be four. Vicisti Galilae! Perkins, you may as well get me another glass of wine.”
In this way the vast army of South Kensington surrendered and the Empire of Notting Hill began. One further fact in this connection is perhaps worth mentioning…the fact that, after his victory, Adam Wayne caused the great tower on Campden Hill to be plated with gold and inscribed with a great epitaph, saying that it was the monument of Wilfrid Lambert, the heroic defender of the place, and surmounted with a statue, in which his large nose was done something less than justice to.
E il Provosto di North Kensington rise.
L’araldo che fu inviato su per Church Street in tutta la pompa dell’azzurro e oro di South Kensington, con i Tre Uccelli sulla sopravveste, era accompagnato da due trombettieri.
“Cosa faranno quando acconsentiranno?” chiese Barker, per il gusto di dire qualcosa nella subitanea quiete di quell’immenso esercito.
“Conosco il mio Wayne molto bene,” disse Buck, ridendo. “Quando si sottomette manderà un araldo rosso fiammeggiante del Leone di Notting Hill. Persino la disfatta gli sarà deliziosa, giacché è formale e romantica.”
Il Re, che era andato girovagando fino alla testa della linea, ruppe il silenzio per la prima volta.
“Non mi stupirei,” disse, “se vi sfidasse, e non mandasse l’araldo dopotutto. Non credo che conosciate il vostro Wayne poi così bene come credete.”
“Va bene, Maestà,” disse Buck, con disinvoltura; “se non è irriverente, metterò i miei calcoli politici in forma molto semplice. Vi scommetto dieci sterline contro uno scellino che l’araldo verrà con la resa.”
“Va bene,” disse Auberon. “Posso sbagliarmi, ma la mia idea di Adam Wayne è che morirà nella sua città, e che, finché non sarà morto, essa non sarà una proprietà sicura.”
“La scommessa è fatta, Maestà,” disse Buck.
Seguì un altro lungo silenzio, nel corso del quale Barker solo, in mezzo all’esercito immobile, girovagava e pestava i piedi al suo modo inquieto.
Poi Buck d’un tratto si sporse in avanti.
“È come prendervi i soldi, Maestà,” disse. “Lo sapevo. Ecco che viene l’araldo da Adam Wayne.”
“Non è vero,” gridò il Re, scrutando anch’egli in avanti. “Bruto, è un omnibus rosso.”
“Non è vero,” disse Buck, con calma; e il Re non rispose, perché giù per il centro della spaziosa e silenziosa Church Street stava camminando, fuor d’ogni dubbio, l’araldo del Leone Rosso, con due trombettieri.
Buck aveva qualcosa in sé che gli insegnava come essere magnanimo. Nella sua ora di successo si sentiva magnanimo verso Wayne, che davvero ammirava; magnanimo verso il Re, ai danni del quale aveva segnato punti così pubblicamente; e, soprattutto, magnanimo verso Barker, che era il capo titolare di questo vasto esercito di South Kensington, il quale il suo proprio talento aveva evocato.
“Generale Barker,” disse, inchinandosi, “vi proponete ora di ricevere il messaggio dagli assediati?”
Anche Barker s’inchinò, e avanzò verso l’araldo.
“Il vostro signore, il signor Adam Wayne, ha ricevuto la nostra richiesta di resa?” chiese.
L’araldo espresse un solenne e rispettoso assenso.
Barker riprese, tossicchiando leggermente, ma incoraggiato.
“Quale risposta manda il vostro signore?”
L’araldo di nuovo s’inchinò sottomesso, e rispose in una specie di monotono.
“Il mio messaggio è questo. Adam Wayne, Lord Alto Provosto di Notting Hill, sotto la carta del Re Auberon e le leggi di Dio e di tutta l’umanità, libero e di una libera città, saluta James Barker, Lord Alto Provosto di South Kensington, per gli stessi diritti libero e onorevole, condottiero dell’esercito del Sud. Con tutta amichevole riverenza, e con tutta costituzionale considerazione, egli desidera che James Barker deponga le armi, e che l’intero esercito sotto il suo comando deponga a sua volta le armi.”
Prima che le parole fossero terminate il Re era corso avanti nello spazio aperto con occhi lucenti. Il resto dello stato maggiore e la prima linea dell’esercito rimasero letteralmente senza fiato. Quando si ripresero cominciarono a ridere senza ritegno; il rovesciamento era troppo improvviso.
“Il Lord Alto Provosto di Notting Hill,” proseguì l’araldo, “non si propone, nel caso della vostra resa, di usare la sua vittoria per alcuno di quei fini repressivi che altri hanno concepito contro di lui. Vi lascerà le vostre libere leggi e le vostre libere città, le vostre bandiere e i vostri governi. Non distruggerà la religione di South Kensington, né schiaccerà le vecchie usanze di Bayswater.”
Un’irreprimibile esplosione di risa si levò dalla prima linea del grande esercito.
“Il Re deve aver avuto qualcosa a che fare con questo umorismo,” disse Buck, battendosi la coscia. “È troppo deliziosamente insolente. Barker, bevete un bicchiere di vino.”
E nella sua convivialità mandò davvero un soldato dall’altra parte al ristorante di fronte alla chiesa e fece portare due bicchieri per un brindisi.
Quando le risa si furono spente, l’araldo proseguì del tutto monotono:
“Nel caso che deponiate le vostre armi e vi disperdiate sotto la sorveglianza delle nostre forze, questi vostri diritti locali saranno accuratamente osservati. Nel caso che non lo facciate, il Lord Alto Provosto di Notting Hill desidera annunciare che ha appena catturato la Torre dell’Acquedotto, proprio sopra di voi, su Campden Hill, e che entro dieci minuti da ora, cioè, al ricevimento tramite me del vostro rifiuto, aprirà il grande serbatoio e inonderà l’intera valle dove state con nove metri d’acqua. Dio salvi il Re Auberon!”
Buck aveva lasciato cadere il suo bicchiere e mandato un grande schizzo di vino sulla strada.
“Ma… ma…” disse; e poi con un ultimo e splendido sforzo della sua gran lucidità, guardò i fatti in faccia.
“Dobbiamo arrenderci,” disse. “Non potreste fare nulla contro cinquantamila tonnellate d’acqua che scendono per una ripida collina, fra dieci minuti. Dobbiamo arrenderci. I nostri quattromila uomini tanto varrebbe fossero quattro. Vicisti Galilae! Perkins, tanto vale che mi prendiate un altro bicchiere di vino.”
In questo modo il vasto esercito di South Kensington si arrese e l’ Impero di Notting Hill ebbe inizio. Un ulteriore fatto a questo riguardo merita forse di essere menzionato… il fatto che, dopo la sua vittoria, Adam Wayne fece placcare d’oro la gran torre su Campden Hill e vi fece incidere un grande epitaffio, dicente che era il monumento di Wilfrid Lambert, l’eroico difensore del luogo, e sormontata da una statua, nella quale al suo gran naso fu resa giustizia alquanto minore del dovuto.
BOOK V CHAPTER I
THE EMPIRE OF NOTTING HILL
ON the evening of the third of October, twenty years after the great victory of Notting Hill, which gave it the dominion of London, King Auberon, came, as of old, out of Kensington Place.
He had changed little, save for a streak or two of grey in his hair, for his face had always been old, and his step slow, and, as it were, decrepit.
If he looked old, it was not because of anything physical or mental. It was because he still wore, with a quaint conservatism, the frock-coat and high hat of the days before the great war. “I have survived the Deluge,” he said. “I am a pyramid, and must behave as such.”
As he passed up the street the Kensingtonians in their picturesque blue smocks, saluted him as a King, and then looked after him as a curiosity. It seemed odd to them that men had once worn so elvish an attire.
The King, cultivating the walk attributed to the oldest inhabitant (“Gaffer Auberon” his friends were now confidentially desired to call him), went toddling northward. He paused, with reminiscence in his eye, at the Southern Gate of Notting Hill, one of those nine great gates of bronze and steel, wrought with reliefs of the old battles, by the hand of Chiffy himself.
“Ah!” he said, shaking his head and assuming an unnecessary air of age, and a provincialism of accent, “Ah! I mind when there warn’t none of this here.”
He passed through the Ossington Gate, surmounted by a great lion, wrought in red copper on yellow brass, with the motto, “Nothing Ill.” The guard in red and gold saluted him with his halberd.
It was about sunset, and the lamps were being lit. Auberon paused to look at them, for they were Chiffy’s finest work, and his artistic eye never failed to feast on them. In memory of the Great Battle of the Lamps, each great iron lamp was surmounted by a veiled figure, sword in hand, holding over the flame an iron hood or extinguisher, as if ready to let it fall if the armies of the South and West should again show their flags in the city. Thus no child in Notting Hill could play about the streets without the very lamp-posts reminding him of the salvation of his country in the dreadful year.
“Old Wayne was right in a way,” commented the King. “The sword does make things beautiful. It has made the whole world romantic by now. And to think people once thought me a buffoon for suggesting a romantic Notting Hill. Deary me, deary me (I think that is the expression). It seems like a previous existence.”
Turning a corner he found himself in Pump Street, opposite the four shops which Adam Wayne had studied twenty years before. He entered idly the shop of Mr. Mead, the grocer. Mr. Mead was somewhat older, like the rest of the world, and his red beard, which he now wore with a moustache, and long and full, was partly blanched and discoloured. He was dressed in a long and richly embroidered robe of blue, brown, and crimson, interwoven with an Eastern complexity of pattern, and covered with obscure symbols and pictures, representing his wares passing from hand to hand and from nation to nation. Round his neck was the chain with the Blue Argosy cut in turquoise, which he wore as Grand Master of the Grocers. The whole shop had the sombre and sumptuous look of its owner. The wares were displayed as prominently as in the old days, but they were now blended and arranged with a sense of tint and grouping, too often neglected by the dim grocers of those forgotten days. The wares were shown plainly, but shown not so much as an old grocer would have shown his stock, but rather as an educated virtuoso would have shown his treasures. The tea was stored in great blue and green vases, inscribed with the nine indispensable sayings of the wise men of China. Other vases of a confused orange and purple, less rigid and dominant, more humble and dreamy, stored symbolically the tea of India. A row of caskets of a simple silvery metal contained tinned meats. Each was wrought with some rude but rhythmic form, as a shell, a horn, a fish, or an apple, to indicate what material had been canned in it. “Your Majesty,” said Mr. Mead, sweeping an Oriental reverence. “This is an honour to me, but yet more an honour to the city.”
Auberon took off his hat.
“Mr. Mead,” he said, “Notting Hill, whether in giving or taking, can deal in nothing but honour. Do you happen to sell liquorice?”
“Liquorice, sire,” said Mr. Mead, “is not the least important of our benefits out of the dark heart of Arabia.”
And going reverently towards a green and silver canister, made in the form of an Arabian mosque, he proceeded to serve his customer.
“I was just thinking, Mr. Mead,” said the King reflectively, “I don’t know why I should think about it just now, but I was just thinking of twenty years ago. Do you remember the times before the war?”
The grocer, having wrapped up the liquorice sticks in a piece of paper (inscribed with some appropriate sentiment), lifted his large grey eyes dreamily, and looked at the darkening sky outside.
“Oh yes, your Majesty,” he said. “I remember these streets before the Lord Provost began to rule us. I can’t remember how we felt very well. All the great songs and the fighting change one so; and I don’t think we can really estimate all we owe to the Provost; but I can remember his coming into this very shop twenty-two years ago, and I remember the things he said. The singular thing is that as far as I remember I thought the things he said odd at that time. Now it’s the things that I said, as far as I can recall them, that seem to me odd…as odd as a madman’s antics.”
“Ah!” said the King; and looked at him with an unfathomable quietness.
“I thought nothing of being a grocer then,” he said. “Isn’t that odd enough for anybody? I thought nothing of all the wonderful places that my goods came from, and wonderful ways that they are made. I did not know that I was for all practical purposes a king with slaves spearing fishes near the secret-pool, and gathering fruits in the islands under the world. My mind was a blank on the thing. I was as mad as a hatter.”
LIBRO V CAPITOLO I
L’IMPERO DI NOTTING HILL
La sera del tre ottobre, vent’anni dopo la grande vittoria di Notting Hill, che le diede il dominio di Londra, Re Auberon uscì, come un tempo, da Kensington Place.
Era cambiato poco, salvo qualche filo di grigio tra i capelli, poiché il suo volto era sempre stato vecchio, e il suo passo lento e, per così dire, decrepito.
Se appariva vecchio, non era per alcunché di fisico o mentale. Era perché portava ancora, con un bizzarro conservatorismo, la finanziera e il cilindro dei giorni precedenti la grande guerra. «Sono sopravvissuto al Diluvio», disse. «Sono una piramide, e devo comportarmi come tale.»
Mentre risaliva la strada i Kensingtoniani nei loro pittoreschi camiciotti azzurri lo salutavano come un Re, per poi seguirlo con lo sguardo come una curiosità. Pareva loro strano che gli uomini avessero un tempo indossato un abbigliamento così stravagante.
Il Re, coltivando l’andatura attribuita al più vecchio degli abitanti («Nonno Auberon» i suoi amici erano ora confidenzialmente pregati di chiamarlo), procedeva ciondolando verso nord. Si fermò, con la reminiscenza negli occhi, alla Porta Meridionale di Notting Hill, una di quelle nove grandi porte di bronzo e acciaio, lavorate con rilievi delle antiche battaglie, dalla mano di Chiffy stesso.
«Ah!» disse, scuotendo il capo e assumendo un’aria superflua di vecchiaia, e un provincialismo d’accento, «Ah! Mi ricordo quando non c’era niente di tutto questo.»
Passò attraverso la Porta di Ossington, sormontata da un grande leone, lavorato in rame rosso su ottone giallo, con il motto «Nothing Ill». La guardia in rosso e oro lo salutò con l’alabarda.
Era circa il tramonto, e si accendevano i lampioni. Auberon si fermò a guardarli, poiché erano l’opera più bella di Chiffy, e il suo occhio d’artista non mancava mai di nutrirsene. In memoria della Grande Battaglia dei Lampioni, ogni grande lampione di ferro era sormontato da una figura velata, spada in pugno, che teneva sopra la fiamma un cappuccio o spegnitoio di ferro, come pronta a lasciarlo cadere se gli eserciti del Sud e dell’Ovest avessero di nuovo mostrato le loro bandiere nella città. Così nessun bambino a Notting Hill poteva giocare per le strade senza che i lampioni stessi gli rammentassero la salvezza del suo paese nell’anno terribile.
«Il vecchio Wayne aveva ragione in un certo senso», commentò il Re. «La spada rende davvero belle le cose. Ha reso ormai romantico il mondo intero. E pensare che un tempo la gente mi credeva un buffone per aver proposto una Notting Hill romantica. Povero me, povero me (credo sia questa l’espressione). Sembra un’esistenza precedente.»
Svoltato un angolo si trovò in Pump Street, di fronte alle quattro botteghe che Adam Wayne aveva studiato vent’anni prima. Entrò oziosamente nella bottega del signor Mead, il droghiere. Il signor Mead era alquanto più vecchio, come il resto del mondo, e la sua barba rossa, che ora portava con i baffi, lunga e folta, era in parte imbiancata e scolorita. Era vestito di una lunga e riccamente ricamata veste di azzurro, bruno e cremisi, intessuta con una complessità orientale di motivi, e coperta di oscuri simboli e figure, che rappresentavano le sue merci passare di mano in mano e di nazione in nazione. Intorno al collo aveva la catena con l’Argosia Azzurra intagliata nel turchese, che portava come Gran Maestro dei Droghieri. L’intera bottega aveva l’aspetto tetro e sontuoso del suo proprietario. Le merci erano esposte in vista come ai vecchi tempi, ma erano ora fuse e disposte con un senso della tinta e del raggruppamento, troppo spesso trascurato dagli offuscati droghieri di quei giorni dimenticati. Le merci erano mostrate con chiarezza, ma mostrate non tanto come un vecchio droghiere avrebbe mostrato la sua scorta, bensì piuttosto come un colto virtuoso avrebbe mostrato i suoi tesori. Il tè era conservato in grandi vasi azzurri e verdi, iscritti con le nove indispensabili sentenze dei saggi della Cina. Altri vasi di un confuso arancio e porpora, meno rigidi e dominanti, più umili e sognanti, conservavano simbolicamente il tè dell’India. Una fila di cofanetti di un semplice metallo argenteo conteneva carni in scatola. Ciascuno era lavorato con qualche forma rozza ma ritmica, come una conchiglia, un corno, un pesce, o una mela, per indicare quale materiale vi fosse stato inscatolato. «Vostra Maestà», disse il signor Mead, con un inchino orientale. «Questo è un onore per me, ma ancor più un onore per la città.»
Auberon si tolse il cilindro.
«Signor Mead», disse, «Notting Hill, sia nel dare sia nel ricevere, non può trattare in nulla se non in onore. Vendete per caso liquirizia?»
«La liquirizia, sire», disse il signor Mead, «non è il meno importante dei nostri benefici tratti dal cuore oscuro dell’Arabia.»
E avvicinandosi reverentemente a un barattolo verde e argento, fatto a forma di moschea araba, procedette a servire il suo cliente.
«Stavo giusto pensando, signor Mead», disse il Re pensieroso, «non so perché dovrei pensarci proprio ora, ma stavo giusto pensando a vent’anni fa. Ricordate i tempi prima della guerra?»
Il droghiere, avendo avvolto i bastoncini di liquirizia in un pezzo di carta (iscritto con qualche sentimento appropriato), sollevò i grandi occhi grigi sognanti, e guardò il cielo che si oscurava fuori.
«Oh sì, Vostra Maestà», disse. «Ricordo queste strade prima che il Lord Provost cominciasse a governarci. Non riesco a ricordare bene come ci sentivamo. Tutti i grandi canti e i combattimenti cambiano tanto un uomo; e non credo che possiamo davvero valutare tutto ciò che dobbiamo al Provost; ma ricordo il suo entrare in questa stessa bottega ventidue anni fa, e ricordo le cose che disse. La cosa singolare è che, per quanto ricordo, allora giudicai strane le cose che disse a quel tempo. Ora sono le cose che dissi io, per quanto riesca a rammentarle, che mi paiono strane… strane come le smorfie di un pazzo.»
«Ah!» disse il Re; e lo guardò con un’imperscrutabile quiete.
«Allora non davo alcun peso all’essere un droghiere», disse. «Non è abbastanza strano per chiunque? Non pensavo affatto a tutti i luoghi meravigliosi da cui provenivano le mie merci, e ai modi meravigliosi in cui sono fatte. Non sapevo di essere a tutti gli effetti pratici un re con schiavi che arpionano pesci presso la pozza segreta, e raccolgono frutti nelle isole sotto il mondo. La mia mente era vuota su tutto ciò. Ero matto come un cappellaio.»
The King turned also, and stared out into the dark, where the great lamps that commemorated the battle were already flaming.
“And is this the end of poor old Wayne?” he said, half to himself. “To inflame every one so much that he is lost himself in the blaze; Is this his victory, that he, my incomparable Wayne, is now only one in a world of Waynes? Has he conquered and become by conquest commonplace? Must Mr. Mead, the grocer, talk as high as he? Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad.”
And he went dreamily out of the shop.
He paused outside the next one almost precisely as the Provost had done two decades before.
“How uncommonly creepy this shop looks,” he said. “But yet somehow encouragingly creepy, invitingly creepy. It looks like something in a jolly old nursery story in which you are frightened out of your skin, and yet know that things always end well. The way those low sharp gables are carved like great black bat’s wings folded down, and the way those queer-coloured bowls underneath are made to shine like giant’s eyeballs. It looks like a benevolent warlock’s hut. It is apparently a chemist’s.”
Almost as he spoke, Mr. Bowles, the chemist, came to his shop door in a long black velvet gown and hood, monastic as it were, but yet with a touch of the diabolic. His hair was still quite black, and his face even paler than of old. The only spot of colour he carried was a red star cut in some precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. He belonged to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded on the lamps displayed by doctors and chemists.
“A fine evening, sir,” said the chemist. “Why, I can scarcely be mistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. Pray step inside and share a bottle of sal-volatile, or anything that my take your fancy. As it happens there is an old acquaintance of your Majesty’s in my shop carousing (if I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage at this moment.”
The King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin’s garden of shades and hues, for as the chemist’s scheme of colour was more brilliant than the grocer’s scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy and fancy. Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay of medicines been presented to the artistic eye.
But even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was rivalled or even eclipsed by the figure standing in the centre of the shop. His form, which was a large and stately one, was clad in a brilliant blue velvet, cut in the richest Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as to show gleams and gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He had several chains round his neck and his plumes, which were of several tints, of bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt of his long sword. He was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, and admiring its opal tint. The King advanced with a slight mystification towards the tall figure, whose face was in shadow, then he said:
“By the Great Lord of Luck, Barker!”
The figure, removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark head and long, almost equine, face which the King had so often seen rising out of the high collar of Bond Street. Except for a grey patch on each temple, it was totally unchanged.
“Your Majesty,” said Barker, “this is a meeting nobly retrospective, a meeting that has about it a certain October gold. I drink to old days;” and he finished his sal-volatile with simple feeling.
“I am delighted to see you again, Barker,” said the King. “It is, indeed, long since we met. What with my travels in Asia Minor, and my book having to be written (you have read my ‘Life of Prince Albert for Children,’ of course), we have scarcely met twice since the Great War. That is twenty years ago.”
“I wonder,” said Barker, thoughtfully, “if I might speak freely to your Majesty.”
“Well,” said Auberon, “it’s rather late in the day to start speaking respectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom.”
“Well, your Majesty,” replied Barker, lowering his voice, “I don’t think it will be so long to the next war.”
“What do you mean?” asked Auberon.
“We will stand this insolence no longer,” burst out Barker, fiercely. “We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years ago cheated us with a water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting Hill; it is not the world. We in South Kensington, we also have memories…aye, and hopes. If they fought for these trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we not fight for the great High Street and the sacred Natural History Museum?”
“Great Heavens!” said the astounded Auberon. “Will wonders never cease? Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? Have you turned altruistic, and has Wayne turned selfish? Are you the patriot, and he the tyrant?”
“It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil comes,” answered Barker. “He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped in dreams, and sits with his old sword beside the fire. But Notting Hill is the tyrant, your Majesty. Its Council and its crowds have been so intoxicated by the spreading over the whole city of Wayne’s old ways and visions, that they try to meddle with every one, and rule every one, and civilize every one, and tell every one what is good for him. I do not deny the great impulse which his old war, wild as it seemed, gave to the civic life of our time. It came when I was still a young man, and I admit it enlarged my career. But we are not going to see our own cities flouted and thwarted from day to day because of something Wayne did for us all nearly a quarter of a century ago. I am just waiting here for news upon this very matter. It is rumoured that Notting Hill has vetoed the statue of General Wilson they are putting up opposite Chepstow Place. If that is so, it is a black and white shameless breach of the terms of which we surrendered to Turnbull after the battle of the Tower. We were to keep our own customs and self-government. If that is so…”
Anche il Re si voltò, e volse lo sguardo fuori nel buio, dove le grandi lampade che commemoravano la battaglia già fiammeggiavano.
«E questa è dunque la fine del povero vecchio Wayne?» disse, quasi tra sé. «Infiammare talmente ogni uomo da perdersi egli stesso nel divampare; è questa la sua vittoria, che egli, il mio incomparabile Wayne, ora è soltanto uno in un mondo di Wayne? Ha vinto ed è divenuto, per la vittoria, cosa comune? Deve il signor Mead, il droghiere, parlare tanto alto quanto lui? Signore! che strano mondo, nel quale un uomo non può restare unico neppure prendendosi la briga di impazzire.»
E uscì sognante dalla bottega.
Si fermò dinanzi a quella accanto quasi esattamente come aveva fatto il Prevosto due decenni prima.
«Come appare straordinariamente sinistra questa bottega,» disse. «Eppure, in qualche modo, incoraggiantemente sinistra, invitantemente sinistra. Somiglia a qualcosa in una vecchia e allegra fiaba da camera dei bambini, in cui ti spaventi a morte, eppure sai che le cose finiscono sempre bene. Il modo in cui quei bassi e acuti frontoni sono intagliati come grandi ali nere di pipistrello ripiegate, e il modo in cui quelle coppe dallo strano colore lì sotto sono fatte per brillare come i bulbi oculari d’un gigante. Somiglia alla capanna d’un benevolo stregone. A quanto pare è un farmacista.»
Quasi mentre parlava, il signor Bowles, il farmacista, giunse alla porta della sua bottega in una lunga veste nera di velluto con cappuccio, monastica per così dire, eppure con un tocco del diabolico. I suoi capelli erano ancora del tutto neri, e il suo volto persino più pallido d’un tempo. L’unico punto di colore che portava era una stella rossa intagliata in qualche pietra preziosa di tinta intensa, appesa al petto. Egli apparteneva alla Società della Stella Rossa della Carità, fondata sulle lampade esposte da medici e farmacisti.
«Bella serata, signore,» disse il farmacista. «Ma davvero non posso ingannarmi nel supporre che siate Vostra Maestà. Vi prego, entrate e condividete una bottiglia di sale volatile, o qualsiasi cosa possa aggradarvi. Si dà il caso che vi sia un’antica conoscenza di Vostra Maestà nella mia bottega che gozzoviglia (se mi è permesso il termine) su quella bevanda in questo momento.»
Il Re entrò nella bottega, che era un giardino di Aladino di ombre e tinte, poiché come lo schema di colore del farmacista era più brillante di quello del droghiere, così era disposto con ancor maggior delicatezza e fantasia. Mai, se è lecito impiegar la frase, un tale mazzolino di medicine era stato presentato all’occhio artistico.
Ma perfino il solenne arcobaleno di quell’interno serale era rivaleggiato o addirittura eclissato dalla figura ritta al centro della bottega. La sua forma, che era grande e maestosa, era vestita d’un brillante velluto azzurro, tagliato alla più ricca maniera rinascimentale, e sfrangiato in modo da mostrar bagliori e squarci d’un meraviglioso limone o giallo pallido. Aveva parecchie catene intorno al collo, e i suoi pennacchi, che erano di parecchie tinte, di bronzo e d’oro, gli scendevano fino alla grande impugnatura d’oro della sua lunga spada. Beveva una dose di sale volatile, e ne ammirava la tinta opalina. Il Re avanzò con una lieve perplessità verso l’alta figura, il cui volto era in ombra, poi disse:
«Per il Gran Signore della Fortuna, Barker!»
La figura si tolse il berretto piumato, mostrando la stessa testa scura e il volto lungo, quasi equino, che il Re aveva così spesso veduto emergere dall’alto colletto di Bond Street. Salvo per una chiazza grigia su ciascuna tempia, era del tutto immutato.
«Vostra Maestà,» disse Barker, «questo è un incontro nobilmente retrospettivo, un incontro che ha in sé un certo oro d’ottobre. Bevo ai vecchi tempi;» e finì il suo sale volatile con schietto sentimento.
«Sono lieto di rivederti, Barker,» disse il Re. «È passato davvero molto tempo dall’ultima volta. Tra i miei viaggi in Asia Minore, e il mio libro da scrivere (avrai letto la mia “Vita del Principe Alberto per Bambini,” s’intende), ci siamo a malapena incontrati due volte dopo la Grande Guerra. Sono vent’anni fa.»
«Mi domando,» disse Barker, pensoso, «se possa parlare liberamente a Vostra Maestà.»
«Ebbene,» disse Auberon, «è piuttosto tardi ormai per cominciare a parlare con rispetto. Vola pure, mio uccello della libertà.»
«Ebbene, Vostra Maestà,» rispose Barker, abbassando la voce, «non credo che manchi molto alla prossima guerra.»
«Che intendi dire?» chiese Auberon.
«Non sopporteremo più a lungo questa insolenza,» proruppe Barker, con ferocia. «Non siamo schiavi perché Adam Wayne vent’anni fa ci ingannò con una condotta d’acqua. Notting Hill è Notting Hill; non è il mondo. Noi di South Kensington, anche noi abbiamo memorie… sì, e speranze. Se essi hanno combattuto per queste botteghe da nulla e per pochi lampioni, non combatteremo noi per la grande High Street e per il sacro Museo di Storia Naturale?»
«Gran Cielo!» disse lo stupefatto Auberon. «Non cesseranno mai i prodigi? Sono state compiute le due più grandi meraviglie? Sei divenuto tu altruista, e Wayne è divenuto egoista? Sei tu il patriota, ed egli il tiranno?»
«Non è propriamente da Wayne stesso che viene il male,» rispose Barker. «Egli, invero, è ora perlopiù avvolto nei sogni, e siede con la sua vecchia spada accanto al fuoco. Ma Notting Hill è il tiranno, Vostra Maestà. Il suo Consiglio e le sue folle sono state talmente inebriate dal diffondersi su tutta la città delle vecchie usanze e visioni di Wayne, che cercano d’immischiarsi con ognuno, e di governare ognuno, e di civilizzare ognuno, e di dire a ognuno ciò che è bene per lui. Non nego il grande impulso che la sua vecchia guerra, per quanto folle sembrasse, diede alla vita civica del nostro tempo. Venne quando io ero ancora un giovane, e ammetto che ampliò la mia carriera. Ma non staremo a vedere le nostre stesse città schernite e ostacolate giorno dopo giorno a causa di qualcosa che Wayne fece per tutti noi quasi un quarto di secolo fa. Sto giusto aspettando qui notizie proprio su questa faccenda. Corre voce che Notting Hill abbia posto il veto sulla statua del Generale Wilson che stanno erigendo di fronte a Chepstow Place. Se è così, è una nera e sfacciata, aperta violazione dei termini coi quali ci arrendemmo a Turnbull dopo la battaglia della Torre. Dovevamo conservare i nostri costumi e il nostro auto-governo. Se è così…»
“It is so,” said a deep voice; and both men turned round.
A burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung round his neck and moustaches almost as florid as his plumes, stood in the doorway.
“Yes,” he said, acknowledging the King’s start, “I am Provost Buck, and the news is true. These men of the Hill have forgotten that we fought round the Tower as well as they did, and that it is sometimes foolish, as well as base, to despise the conquered.”
“Let us step outside,” said Barker, with a grim composure.
Buck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the lamp-lit street.
“I would like to have a go at smashing all this,” he muttered, “though I am over sixty. I would like…”
His voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with his hands to his eyes, as he had done in those streets twenty years before.
“Darkness!” he cried “darkness again! What does it mean?”
For in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that they could not see even each other’s outline, except faintly. The voice of the chemist came with startling cheerfulness out of the density.
“Oh, don’t you know?” he said. “Did they never tell you this is the Feast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great battle that almost lost and just saved Notting Hill? Don’t you know, your Majesty, that on this night twenty-one years ago we saw Wilson’s green uniforms charging down this street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back upon the gas-works, fighting with their handful of men like fiends from hell? And that then, in that great hour, Wayne sprang through a window of the gas-works, with one blow of his hand brought darkness on the whole city, and then with a cry like a lion’s, that was heard through four streets, flew at Wilson’s men, sword in hand, and swept them, bewildered as they were, and ignorant of the map, clear out of the sacred street again? And don’t you know that upon that night every year all lights are turned out for half an hour while we sing the Notting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! there it begins.”
Through the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong swell of human voices:
“When the world was in the balance, there was night on Notting Hill,
(There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the day;
On the cities where the lights are and the firesides glow,
From the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did not know,
Came the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on the foe,
And the old guard of God turned to bay.
For the old guard of God turns to bay, turns to bay,
And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall to-day.
For when armies were around us as a howling and a horde,
When falling was the citadel and broken was the sword,
The darkness came upon them like the Dragon of the Lord,
When the old guard of God turned to bay.”
The voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse, when they were stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had bounded into the street with a cry of “South Kensington!” and a drawn dagger. In less time than man could blink, the whole packed street was full of curses and struggling. Barker was flung back against the shop-front, but used the second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, and calling out, “This is not the first time I’ve come through the thick of you,” flung himself again into the press. It was evident that he had drawn blood at last, for a more violent outcry arose, and many other knives and sworlds were discernible in the faint light. Barker, after having wounded more than one man, seemed on the point of being flung back again, when Buck suddenly stepped out into the street. He had no weapon, for he affected rather the peaceful magnificence of the great burgher, than the pugnacious dandyism which had replaced the old sombre dandyism in Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist he broke the pane of the next shop, which was the old curiosity shop, and, plunging in his hand, snatched a kind of Japanese scimitar, and calling out, “Kensington! Kensington!” rushed to Barker’s assistance.
Barker’s sword was broken, but he was laying about him with his dagger. Just as Buck ran up, a man of Hotting Hill struck Barker down, but Buck struck the man down on top of him, and Barker sprang up again, the blood running down his face.
Suddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that seemed to fall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and Barker and the King from its seeming to come out the empty skies; but it was more terrible because it was a familiar voice, and one which at the same time they had not heard for so long.
“Turn up the lights,” said the voice from above them, and for a moment there was no reply, but only a tumult.
“In the name of Notting Hill, and of the great Council of the City, turn up the lights.”
There was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then the whole street and every object in it sprang suddenly out of the darkness, as every lamp sprang into life. And looking up they saw, standing upon a balcony near the roof of one of the highest houses, the figure and the face of Adam Wayne, his red hair blowing behind him, a little streaked with grey.
“What is this, my people?” he said. “Is it altogether impossible to make a thing good without it immediately insisting on being wicked? The glory of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, has been enough for me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside the fire. Is it really not enough for you, who have had so many other affairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Why should it condescend to be a mere Empire? You wish to pull down the statue of General Wilson, which the men of Bayswater have so rightly erected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? Did Bayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see that it is the glory of our achievement that we have infected the other cities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It is we who have created not only our own side, but both sides of this controversy. O too humble fools…why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You have done something more to them. You have created your enemies. You wish to pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like an obelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! Before Notting Hill arose, did any person passing through Hammersmith Broadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You wish to abolish the great bronze figure of a knight standing upon the artificial bridge at Knightsbridge. Fools! Who would have thought of it before Notting Hill arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain I have heard it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been cast towards the remote horizon of the west, and that we have objected to the great black monuments of a crowned raven, which commemorates the skirmish of Ravenscourt Park. Who created all these things? Were they there before we came? Cannot you be content with that destiny which was enough for Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the humble purpose of creating a new world. Is Athens angry because Romans and Florentines have adopted her phraseology for expressing their own patriotism? Is Nazareth angry because as a little village it has become the type of all little villages out of which, as the Snobs say, no good can come? Has Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys? Are all followers of the Nazarene compelled to wear turbans? No! but the soul of Athens went forth and made men drink hemlock, and the soul of Nazareth went forth and made men consent to be crucified. So has the soul of Notting Hill gone forth and made men realize what it is to live in a city. Just as we inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, so they have inaugurated theirs; and are you so mad as to contend against them? Notting Hill is right; it has always been right. It has moulded itself on its own necessities, its own sine qua non, it has accepted its own ultimatum. Because it is a nation it has created itself. And because it is a nation it can destroy itself. Notting Hill shall always be the judge. If it is your will because of this matter of General Wilson’s statue to make war upon Bayswater…”
«È così», disse una voce profonda; ed entrambi gli uomini si voltarono.
Una figura corpulenta in vesti purpuree, con un’aquila d’argento appesa al collo e i baffi quasi altrettanto sfarzosi dei suoi pennacchi, stava sulla soglia.
«Sì», disse, prendendo atto del sussulto del Re, «io sono il Prevosto Buck, e la notizia è vera. Questi uomini della Collina hanno dimenticato che anche noi combattemmo intorno alla Torre così bene come loro, e che talvolta è sciocco, oltre che vile, disprezzare i vinti.»
«Usciamo fuori», disse Barker, con truce compostezza.
Buck lo fece, e rimase roteando gli occhi su e giù per la strada illuminata dai lampioni.
«Mi piacerebbe provare a fare a pezzi tutto questo», mormorò, «benché abbia più di sessant’anni. Mi piacerebbe…»
La sua voce terminò in un grido, ed egli barcollò indietro d’un passo, con le mani agli occhi, come aveva fatto in quelle strade vent’anni prima.
«Tenebre!» gridò «di nuovo le tenebre! Che cosa significa?»
Poiché in verità ogni lampione della strada si era spento, sicché non riuscivano a scorgere nemmeno il contorno l’uno dell’altro, se non debolmente. La voce del farmacista giunse con sorprendente allegria dalla densità.
«Oh, non lo sapete?» disse. «Non vi hanno mai detto che questa è la Festa dei Lumi, l’anniversario della grande battaglia che quasi perse e a stento salvò Notting Hill? Non sapete, Maestà, che in questa notte ventun anni fa vedemmo le uniformi verdi di Wilson caricare giù per questa strada, e ricacciare Wayne e Turnbull contro le officine del gas, combattendo con la loro manciata di uomini come demoni dell’inferno? E che allora, in quella grande ora, Wayne balzò attraverso una finestra delle officine del gas, con un solo colpo della mano portò le tenebre sull’intera città, e poi con un grido come quello d’un leone, che fu udito per quattro strade, si scagliò sugli uomini di Wilson, la spada in pugno, e li spazzò via, sbigottiti com’erano, e ignari della mappa, di nuovo fuori dalla sacra strada? E non sapete che in quella notte, ogni anno, tutte le luci vengono spente per mezz’ora mentre cantiamo nelle tenebre l’inno di Notting Hill? Udite! là comincia.»
Attraverso la notte giunse un fragore di tamburi, e poi un possente gonfiarsi di voci umane:
«Quando il mondo era in bilico, scese la notte su Notting Hill, (Scese la notte su Notting Hill): fu più nobile del giorno; Sulle città dove splendono i lumi e ardono i focolari, Dai mari e dai deserti venne la cosa che non conoscevamo, Vennero le tenebre, vennero le tenebre, vennero le tenebre sul nemico, E la vecchia guardia di Dio si volse a far fronte. Poiché la vecchia guardia di Dio si volge a far fronte, si volge a far fronte, E le stelle cadono davanti a lei prima che oggi cadano i suoi vessilli. Poiché quando gli eserciti ci circondavano come un urlo e un’orda, Quando cadeva la cittadella e spezzata era la spada, Le tenebre calarono su di loro come il Drago del Signore, Quando la vecchia guardia di Dio si volse a far fronte.»
Le voci stavano appena sollevandosi in una seconda strofa, quando furono interrotte da uno scompiglio e da un urlo. Barker si era slanciato nella strada con un grido di «South Kensington!» e un pugnale sguainato. In meno tempo di quanto un uomo impieghi a battere ciglio, l’intera strada gremita si riempì di imprecazioni e di lotta. Barker fu scaraventato all’indietro contro la vetrina del negozio, ma sfruttò l’attimo solo per sguainare la spada oltre che il pugnale, e gridando «Non è la prima volta che vengo attraverso la calca di voi», si gettò di nuovo nella mischia. Era evidente che aveva finalmente versato sangue, poiché sorse un clamore ancor più violento, e molti altri coltelli e spade divennero visibili nella fioca luce. Barker, dopo aver ferito più d’un uomo, sembrava sul punto d’essere respinto ancora una volta, quando Buck a un tratto uscì sulla strada. Non aveva alcuna arma, poiché egli prediligeva piuttosto la pacifica magnificenza del gran borghese che il combattivo dandismo che aveva sostituito in Barker l’antico cupo dandismo. Ma con un colpo del pugno serrato ruppe il vetro del negozio accanto, che era il vecchio negozio di curiosità, e, cacciandovi dentro la mano, afferrò una sorta di scimitarra giapponese, e gridando «Kensington! Kensington!» si precipitò in soccorso di Barker.
La spada di Barker era spezzata, ma egli menava colpi all’intorno con il pugnale. Proprio mentre Buck accorreva, un uomo di Notting Hill abbatté Barker, ma Buck abbatté quell’uomo sopra di lui, e Barker balzò di nuovo in piedi, il sangue che gli colava lungo il volto.
A un tratto tutte queste grida furono fesse da una gran voce, che pareva piombare dal cielo. Fu terribile per Buck e Barker e il Re per il suo sembrare provenire dai cieli vuoti; ma fu più terribile perché era una voce familiare, e una che al tempo stesso non udivano da così lungo tempo.
«Riaccendete i lumi», disse la voce sopra di loro, e per un momento non vi fu risposta, ma solo un tumulto.
«Nel nome di Notting Hill, e del gran Consiglio della Città, riaccendete i lumi.»
Vi fu di nuovo un tumulto e un’incertezza per un momento, poi l’intera strada e ogni oggetto in essa balzarono di colpo fuori dalle tenebre, mentre ogni lampione si ridestava alla vita. E alzando lo sguardo videro, ritto su un balcone presso il tetto d’una delle case più alte, la figura e il volto di Adam Wayne, i capelli rossi che gli fluttuavano dietro, un poco striati di grigio.
«Che cos’è questo, popolo mio?» disse. «È dunque del tutto impossibile fare una cosa buona senza che essa insista immediatamente per farsi malvagia? La gloria di Notting Hill nell’aver conquistato la propria indipendenza è bastata a farmi sognare per molti anni, mentre sedevo accanto al fuoco. Non basta davvero a voi, che avete avuto tanti altri affari per eccitarvi e distrarvi? Notting Hill è una nazione. Perché dovrebbe abbassarsi a essere un mero Impero? Volete abbattere la statua del Generale Wilson, che gli uomini di Bayswater hanno così giustamente eretto in Westbourne Grove. Sciocchi! Chi eresse quella statua? La eresse Bayswater? No. La eresse Notting Hill. Non vedete che è la gloria della nostra impresa l’aver contagiato le altre città con l’idealismo di Notting Hill? Siamo noi che abbiamo creato non solo il nostro schieramento, ma entrambi gli schieramenti di questa contesa. Oh sciocchi troppo umili… perché dovreste desiderare di distruggere i vostri nemici? Avete fatto loro qualcosa di più. Avete creato i vostri nemici. Volete abbattere quel gigantesco martello d’argento che si erge, come un obelisco, al centro del Broadway di Hammersmith. Sciocchi! Prima che sorgesse Notting Hill, si aspettava forse qualcuno, passando per Hammersmith Broadway, di vedervi un gigantesco martello d’argento? Volete abolire la grande figura bronzea d’un cavaliere ritto sul ponte artificiale di Knightsbridge. Sciocchi! Chi ci avrebbe pensato prima che sorgesse Notting Hill? Ho perfino udito, e con profondo dolore l’ho udito, che il malocchio della nostra invidia imperiale è stato gettato verso il remoto orizzonte dell’occidente, e che abbiamo mosso obiezioni ai grandi monumenti neri d’un corvo coronato, che commemora la scaramuccia di Ravenscourt Park. Chi creò tutte queste cose? Esistevano forse prima che giungessimo noi? Non potete accontentarvi di quel destino che bastò ad Atene, che bastò a Nazareth? il destino, l’umile scopo di creare un mondo nuovo. È forse Atene adirata perché Romani e Fiorentini hanno adottato la sua fraseologia per esprimere il proprio patriottismo? È forse Nazareth adirata perché, da piccolo villaggio, è divenuta il tipo di tutti i piccoli villaggi da cui, come dicono gli Snob, nulla di buono può venire? Ha forse Atene chiesto a tutti di indossare la clamide? Sono forse tutti i seguaci del Nazareno costretti a portare il turbante? No! ma l’anima di Atene uscì e indusse gli uomini a bere la cicuta, e l’anima di Nazareth uscì e indusse gli uomini a consentire d’essere crocifissi. Così l’anima di Notting Hill è uscita e ha fatto comprendere agli uomini che cosa significhi vivere in una città. Proprio come noi inaugurammo i nostri simboli e le nostre cerimonie, così essi hanno inaugurato i loro; e siete voi tanto folli da contendere contro di essi? Notting Hill ha ragione; ha sempre avuto ragione. Si è plasmata sulle proprie necessità, sul proprio sine qua non, ha accettato il proprio ultimatum. Perché è una nazione, ha creato se stessa. E perché è una nazione, può distruggere se stessa. Notting Hill sarà sempre il giudice. Se è vostra volontà, a causa di questa faccenda della statua del Generale Wilson, muovere guerra a Bayswater…»
A roar of cheers broke in upon his words, and further speech was impossible. Pale to the lips, the great patriot tried again and again to speak; but even his authority could not keep down the dark and roaring masses in the street below him. He said something further, but it was not audible. He descended at last sadly from the garret in which he lived, and mingled with the crowd at the foot of the houses. Finding General Turnbull, he put his hand on his shoulder with a queer affection and gravity, and said:
“To-morrow, old man, we shall have a new experience, as fresh as the flowers of spring. We shall be defeated. You and I have been through three battles together, and have somehow or other missed this peculiar delight. It is unfortunate that we shall not probably be able to exchange our experiences, because, as it most annoyingly happens, we shall probably both be dead.”
Turnbull looked dimly surprised.
“I don’t mind so much about being dead,” he said, “but why should you say that we shall be defeated?”
“The answer is very simple,” replied Wayne, calmly. “It is because we ought to be defeated. We have been in the most horrible holes before now; but in all those I was perfectly certain that the stars were on our side, and that we ought to get out. Now, I know that we ought not to get out; and that takes away from me everything with which I won.”
As Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became aware that a third figure was listening to them…a small figure with wondering eyes.
“Is it really true, my dear Wayne,” said the King, interrupting, “that you think you will be beaten to-morrow?”
“There can be no doubt about it whatever,” replied Adam Wayne; “the real reason is the one of which I have just spoken. But as a concession to your materialism, I will add that they have an organized army of a hundred allied cities against our one. That in itself, however, would be unimportant.”
Quin, with his round eyes, seemed strangely insistent.
“You are quite sure,” he said, “that you must be beaten?”
“I am afraid,” said Turnbull, gloomily, “that there can be no doubt about it.”
“Then,” cried the King, flinging out his arms, “give me a halberd! Give me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to witness that I, Auberon, King of England, do here and now abdicate and implore the Provost of Notting Hill to permit me to enlist in his army. Give me a halberd!”
He seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, stamped solemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers which were, by this time, parading the streets. He had, however, nothing to do with the wrecking of the statue of General Wilson, which took place before morning.
Un boato di acclamazioni irruppe sulle sue parole, e ogni altro discorso divenne impossibile. Pallido fino alle labbra, il grande patriota tentò ancora e ancora di parlare; ma nemmeno la sua autorità poteva tenere a freno le masse cupe e ruggenti nella strada sotto di lui. Disse qualcos’altro, ma non fu udibile. Alla fine discese mestamente dalla soffitta in cui viveva, e si confuse con la folla ai piedi delle case. Trovato il generale Turnbull, gli posò la mano sulla spalla con una strana tenerezza e gravità, e disse:
“Domani, vecchio mio, avremo un’esperienza nuova, fresca come i fiori di primavera. Saremo sconfitti. Tu ed io siamo passati insieme attraverso tre battaglie, e in un modo o nell’altro ci è sfuggito questo singolare diletto. È un peccato che probabilmente non potremo scambiarci le nostre impressioni, perché, come nel modo più seccante accade, saremo probabilmente entrambi morti.”
Turnbull parve vagamente sorpreso.
“Non m’importa granché di essere morto,” disse, “ma perché mai dici che saremo sconfitti?”
“La risposta è molto semplice,” replicò Wayne, con calma. “È perché dobbiamo essere sconfitti. Ci siamo trovati prima d’ora nei più orribili frangenti; ma in tutti quelli ero perfettamente certo che le stelle fossero dalla nostra parte, e che dovessimo cavarcela. Ora so che non dobbiamo cavarcela; e ciò mi toglie tutto ciò con cui vincevo.”
Mentre Wayne parlava trasalì un poco, perché entrambi gli uomini si avvidero che una terza figura li stava ascoltando… una figura piccola dagli occhi meravigliati.
“È davvero vero, mio caro Wayne,” disse il Re, interrompendo, “che credi che domani sarai battuto?”
“Non ci può essere dubbio alcuno al riguardo,” replicò Adam Wayne; “la vera ragione è quella di cui ho appena parlato. Ma come concessione al tuo materialismo, aggiungerò che essi hanno un esercito organizzato di cento città alleate contro la nostra sola. Ciò di per sé, tuttavia, sarebbe irrilevante.”
Quin, con i suoi occhi tondi, pareva stranamente insistente.
“Sei proprio sicuro,” disse, “che dovrai essere battuto?”
“Temo,” disse Turnbull, cupamente, “che non ci possa essere dubbio al riguardo.”
“Allora,” gridò il Re, spalancando le braccia, “datemi un’alabarda! Datemi un’alabarda, qualcuno! Desidero che tutti gli uomini siano testimoni che io, Auberon, Re d’Inghilterra, qui e ora abdico e supplico il Prevosto di Notting Hill di permettermi di arruolarmi nel suo esercito. Datemi un’alabarda!”
Ne afferrò una da una guardia di passaggio e, imbracciatala, marciò solennemente dietro le colonne urlanti di alabardieri che, a quest’ora, sfilavano per le strade. Non ebbe però nulla a che fare con la demolizione della statua del generale Wilson, che avvenne prima del mattino.
CHAPTER II
THE LAST BATTLE
THE day was cloudy when Wayne went down to die with all his army in Kensington Gardens; it was cloudy again when that army had been swallowed up by the vast armies of a new world. There had been an almost uncanny interval of sunshine, in which the Provost of Notting Hill, with all the placidity of an onlooker, had gazed across to the hostile armies on the great spaces of verdure opposite; the long strips of green and blue and gold lay across the park in squares and oblongs like a proposition in Euclid wrought in a rich embroidery. But the sunlight was a weak and, as it were, a wet sunlight, and was soon swallowed up. Wayne spoke to the King, with a queer sort of coldness and languor, as to the military operations. It was as he had said the night before, that being deprived of his sense of an impracticable rectitude he was, in effect, being deprived of everything. He was out of date, and at sea in a mere world of compromise and competition, of Empire against Empire, of the tolerably right and the tolerably wrong. When his eye fell on the King, however, who was marching very gravely with a top hat and a halberd, it brightened slightly.
“Well, your Majesty,” he said, “you at least ought to be proud to-day. If your children are fighting each other, at least those who win are your children. Other kings have distributed justice, you have distributed life. Other kings have ruled a nation, you have created nations. Others have made kingdoms, you have begotten them. Look at your children, father.” And he stretched his hand out towards the enemy.
Auberon did not raise his eyes.
“See how splendidly,” cried Wayne, “the new cities come on…the new cities from across the river. See where Battersea advances over there…under the flag of the Lost Dog; and Putney…don’t you see the Man on the White Boar shining on their standard as the sun catches it? It is the coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not a common empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a mode of life, of a manner of living, which shall renew the youth of the world…a thing like Nazareth. When I was young I remember, in the old dreary days, wiseacres used to write books about how trains would get faster, and all the world would be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon. And even as a child I used to say to myself, ‘Far more likely that we shall go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the city.’ And so it has been. And I am glad, though this is my last battle.”
Even as he spoke there came a crash of steel from the left, and he turned his head.
“Wilson!” he cried, with a kind of joy. “Red Wilson has charged our left. No one can hold him; he eats swords. He is as keen a soldier as Turnbull, but less patient…less really great. Ha! and Barker is moving. How Barker has improved; how handsome he looks. It is not all having plumes; it is also having a soul in one’s daily life. Ha!”
And another crash of steel on the right showed that Barker had closed with Notting Hill on the other side.
“Turnbull is there!” cried Wayne. “See him hurl them back! Barker is checked! Turnbull charges…wins! But our left is broken. Wilson has smashed Bowles and Mead, and may turn our flank. Forward, the Provost’s Guard!”
And the whole centre moved forward, Wayne’s face and hair and sword flaming in the van.
The King ran suddenly forward.
The next instant a great jar that went through it told that it had met the enemy. And right over against them through the wood of their own weapons Auberon saw the Purple Eagle of Buck of North Kensington.
On the left Red Wilson was storming the broken ranks, his little green figure conspicuous even in the tangle of men and weapons, with the flaming red moustaches and the crown of laurel. Bowles slashed at his head and tore away some of the wreath, leaving the rest bloody, and, with a roar like a bull’s, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattle of fencing, plunged his point into the chemist, who fell, crying “Notting Hill!” Then the Notting Hillers wavered, and Bayswater swept them back in confusion. Wilson had carried everything before him.
On the right, however, Turnbull had carried the Red Lion banner with a rush against Barker’s men, and the banner of the Golden Birds bore up with difficulty against it. Barker’s men fell fast. In the centre Wayne and Buck were engaged, stubborn and confused. So far as the fighting went, it was precisely equal. But the fighting was a farce. For behind the three small armies with which Wayne’s small army was engaged lay the great sea of the allied armies, which looked on as yet as scornful spectators, but could have broken all four armies by moving a finger.
Suddenly they did move. Some of the front contingents, the pastoral chiefs from Shepherd’s Bush, with their spears and fleeces, were seen advancing, and the rude clans from Paddington Green. They were advancing for a very good reason. Buck, of North Kensington, was signalling wildly; he was surrounded, and totally cut off. His regiments were a struggling mass of people, islanded in a red sea of Notting Hill.
The allies had been too careless and confident. They had allowed Barker’s force to be broken to pieces by Turnbull, and the moment that was done, the astute old leader of Notting Hill swung his men round and attacked Buck behind and on both sides. At the same moment Wayne cried “Charge!” and struck him in front like a thunderbolt.
Two-thirds of Buck’s men were cut to pieces before their allies could reach them. Then the sea of cities came on with their banners like breakers, and swallowed Notting Hill for ever. The battle was not over, for not one of Wayne’s men would surrender, and it lasted till sundown, and long after. But it was decided; the story of Notting Hill was ended.
CAPITOLO II
L’ULTIMA BATTAGLIA
IL giorno era nuvoloso quando Wayne scese a morire con tutto il suo esercito nei Kensington Gardens; era di nuovo nuvoloso quando quell’esercito fu inghiottito dai vasti eserciti di un mondo nuovo. Vi era stato un intervallo di sole quasi perturbante, durante il quale il Prevosto di Notting Hill, con tutta la placidità di uno spettatore, aveva contemplato al di là gli eserciti nemici sulle grandi distese di verzura di fronte; le lunghe strisce di verde e d’azzurro e d’oro si stendevano attraverso il parco in quadrati e rettangoli come una proposizione di Euclide ricamata in un ricco arazzo. Ma la luce del sole era una luce debole e, per così dire, umida, e fu presto inghiottita. Wayne parlò al Re, con una strana sorta di freddezza e di languore, delle operazioni militari. Era come aveva detto la notte prima, che, privato del suo senso di un’irrealizzabile rettitudine, egli era, in effetti, privato di ogni cosa. Era fuori dal suo tempo, e alla deriva in un mero mondo di compromesso e di competizione, di Impero contro Impero, del tollerabilmente giusto e del tollerabilmente ingiusto. Quando il suo occhio cadde però sul Re, che marciava con grande gravità con un cilindro e un’alabarda, si rischiarò leggermente.
«Ebbene, Maestà,» disse, «voi almeno dovreste essere fiero oggi. Se i vostri figli combattono l’uno contro l’altro, almeno quelli che vincono sono vostri figli. Altri re hanno distribuito giustizia, voi avete distribuito vita. Altri re hanno governato una nazione, voi avete creato nazioni. Altri hanno fatto regni, voi li avete generati. Guardate i vostri figli, padre.» E tese la mano verso il nemico.
Auberon non alzò gli occhi.
«Guardate con quale splendore,» gridò Wayne, «avanzano le nuove città… le nuove città al di là del fiume. Guardate dove avanza Battersea laggiù… sotto la bandiera del Cane Perduto; e Putney… non vedete l’Uomo sul Cinghiale Bianco che brilla sul loro stendardo mentre il sole lo coglie? È l’avvento di un’era nuova, Maestà. Notting Hill non è un impero comune; è una cosa come Atene, la madre di un modo di vita, di una maniera di vivere, che rinnoverà la giovinezza del mondo… una cosa come Nazaret. Quando ero giovane ricordo, nei vecchi tetri giorni, i saccenti scrivevano libri su come i treni sarebbero diventati più veloci, e tutto il mondo sarebbe stato un solo impero, e i tram sarebbero andati sulla luna. E persino da bambino usavo dire a me stesso: ‘Assai più probabile che andremo di nuovo alle crociate, o adoreremo gli dèi della città.’ E così è stato. E sono lieto, benché questa sia la mia ultima battaglia.»
Proprio mentre parlava giunse un fragore d’acciaio dalla sinistra, ed egli volse il capo.
«Wilson!» gridò, con una sorta di gioia. «Il Rosso Wilson ha caricato la nostra sinistra. Nessuno può trattenerlo; egli divora spade. È un soldato tanto accanito quanto Turnbull, ma meno paziente… meno veramente grande. Ah! e Barker si muove. Come è migliorato Barker; come appare avvenente. Non è tutto avere pennacchi; è anche avere un’anima nella propria vita quotidiana. Ah!»
E un altro fragore d’acciaio sulla destra mostrò che Barker si era scontrato con Notting Hill dall’altro lato.
«Turnbull è là!» gridò Wayne. «Guardatelo respingerli indietro! Barker è arrestato! Turnbull carica… vince! Ma la nostra sinistra è spezzata. Wilson ha travolto Bowles e Mead, e potrebbe aggirare il nostro fianco. Avanti, Guardia del Prevosto!»
E tutto il centro avanzò, il volto e i capelli e la spada di Wayne fiammeggianti in testa.
Il Re corse d’improvviso in avanti.
L’istante successivo un grande urto che lo attraversò annunciò che aveva incontrato il nemico. E proprio di fronte a loro, attraverso il bosco delle loro stesse armi, Auberon vide l’Aquila Purpurea di Buck di North Kensington.
Sulla sinistra il Rosso Wilson stava assaltando le file spezzate, la sua piccola figura verde cospicua persino nel groviglio di uomini e di armi, con i fiammeggianti baffi rossi e la corona d’alloro. Bowles vibrò un colpo alla sua testa e ne strappò via una parte della ghirlanda, lasciando il resto insanguinato, e, con un ruggito come quello d’un toro, Wilson gli balzò addosso e, dopo un tintinnio di scherma, affondò la sua punta nel farmacista, che cadde gridando «Notting Hill!» Allora gli abitanti di Notting Hill vacillarono, e Bayswater li ricacciò indietro nella confusione. Wilson aveva travolto ogni cosa davanti a sé.
Sulla destra, tuttavia, Turnbull aveva portato il vessillo del Leone Rosso con uno slancio contro gli uomini di Barker, e lo stendardo degli Uccelli d’Oro resisteva a fatica contro di esso. Gli uomini di Barker cadevano rapidamente. Al centro Wayne e Buck erano alle prese, ostinati e confusi. Per quanto riguardava il combattimento, esso era perfettamente pari. Ma il combattimento era una farsa. Poiché dietro i tre piccoli eserciti coi quali il piccolo esercito di Wayne era alle prese giaceva il grande mare degli eserciti alleati, che per ora osservavano come spettatori sprezzanti, ma che avrebbero potuto spezzare tutti e quattro gli eserciti muovendo un dito.
D’improvviso essi si mossero. Alcuni dei contingenti di prima linea, i capi pastorali di Shepherd’s Bush, con le loro lance e i loro velli, furono visti avanzare, e i rozzi clan di Paddington Green. Avanzavano per un’ottima ragione. Buck, di North Kensington, faceva segnali freneticamente; era circondato, e totalmente tagliato fuori. I suoi reggimenti erano una massa di gente che si dibatteva, isolata come un’isola in un rosso mare di Notting Hill.
Gli alleati erano stati troppo incuranti e sicuri. Avevano lasciato che la forza di Barker fosse fatta a pezzi da Turnbull, e nel momento in cui ciò fu compiuto, l’astuto vecchio condottiero di Notting Hill fece volteggiare i suoi uomini e attaccò Buck alle spalle e su entrambi i lati. Nello stesso momento Wayne gridò «Carica!» e lo colpì di fronte come una folgore.
Due terzi degli uomini di Buck furono fatti a pezzi prima che i loro alleati potessero raggiungerli. Poi il mare delle città giunse coi suoi vessilli come frangenti, e inghiottì Notting Hill per sempre. La battaglia non era finita, poiché neppure uno degli uomini di Wayne voleva arrendersi, e durò fino al tramonto, e a lungo dopo. Ma era decisa; la storia di Notting Hill era terminata.
When Turnbull saw it, he ceased a moment from fighting, and looked round him. The evening sunlight struck his face; it looked like a child’s.
“I have had my youth,” he said. Then snatching an axe from a man, he dashed into the thick of the spears of Shepherd’s Bush, and died somewhere far in the depths of their reeling ranks. Then the battle roared on; every man of Notting Hill was slain before night.
Wayne was standing by a tree alone after the battle. Several men approached him with axes. One struck at him. His foot seemed partly to slip; but he flung his hand out, and steadied himself against the tree.
Barker sprang after him, sword in hand, and shaking with excitement.
“How large now, my lord,” he cried, “is the Empire of Notting Hill?”
Wayne smiled in the gathering dark.
“Always as large as this,” he said, and swept his sword round in a semicircle of silver.
Barker dropped, wounded in the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came behind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and a mass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city before them, and shouting aloud.
At the same second Wilson went down under Wayne’s sword, seemingly smashed like a fly. The great sword rose again like, a bird, but Wilson seemed to rise with it, and, his sword being broken, sprang at Wayne’s throat like a dog. The foremost of the yellow halberdiers had reached the tree and swung his axe above the struggling Wayne. With a curse the King whirled up his own halberd and dashed the blade in the man’s face. He reeled, and rolled, down the slope, just as the furious Wilson was flung on his back again. And again he was on his feet, and again at Wayne’s throat. Then he was flung again, but this time laughing triumphantly. Grasped in his hand was the red and yellow favour that Wayne wore as Provost of Notting Hill. He had torn it from the place where it had been carried for twenty-five years.
With a shout the West Kensington men closed round Wayne, the great yellow banner flapping over his head.
“Where is your favour now, Provost?” cried the West Kensington leader. And a laugh went up.
Adam struck at the standard-bearer and brought him reeling forward. As the banner stooped, he grasped the yellow folds and tore off a shred. A halberdier struck him on the shoulder, wounding bloodily.
“Here is one colour!” he cried, pushing the yellow into his belt; “and here!” he cried, pointing to his own blood, “Here is the other.”
At the same instant the shock of a sudden and heavy halberd laid the King stunned or dead. In the wild visions of vanishing consciousness, he saw again something that belonged to an utterly forgotten time, something that he had seen somewhere long ago in a restaurant. He saw, with his swimming eyes, red and yellow, the colours of Nicaragua.
Quin did not see the end. Wilson, wild with joy, sprang again at Adam Wayne, and the great sword of Notting Hill was whirled above once more. Then men ducked instinctively at the rushing noise of the sword coming down out of the sky, and Wilson of Bayswater was smashed and wiped down upon the floor like a fly. Nothing was left of him but a wreck; but the blade that had broken him was broken. In dying he had snapped the great sword and the spell of it; the sword of Wayne was broken, at the hilt. One rush of the enemy carried Wayne by force against the tree. They were too close to use halberd or even sword; they were breast to breast, even nostrils to nostrils. But Buck got his dagger free.
“Kill him!” he cried, in a strange stifled voice. “Kill him! Good or bad, he is none of us! Do not be blinded by the face! … God! have we not been blinded all along!” and he drew his arm back for a stab and seemed to close his eyes.
Wayne did not drop the hand that hung on to the tree-branch. But a mighty heave went over his breast, and his whole huge figure, like an earthquake over great hills. And with that convulsion of effort he rent the branch out of the tree, with tongues of torn wood. And swaying it once only, he let the splintered club fall on Buck, breaking his neck. The planner of the Great Road fell face foremost dead, with his dagger in a grip of steel.
“For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother,” said Wayne, in his strange chant, “there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of the world.”
The packed men made another lurch or heave towards him; it was almost too dark to fight clearly. He caught hold of the oak again, this time getting his hand into a wide crevice and grasping, as it were, the bowels of the tree. The whole crowd, numbering some thirty men, made a rush to tear him away from it; they hung on with all their weight and numbers, and nothing stirred. A solitude could not have been stiller than that group of straining men. Then there was a faint sound.
“His hand is slipping,” cried two men in exultation.
“You don’t know much of him,” said another, grimly (a man of the old war). “More likely his bone cracks.”
“It is neither…by God, it is neither!” said one of the first two.
“What is it, then?” asked the second.
“The tree is falling,” he replied.
“As the tree falleth, so shall it lie,” said Wayne’s voice out of the darkness, and it had the same sweet and yet horrible air that it had had throughout, of coming from a great distance, from before or after the event. Even when he was struggling like an eel or battering like a madman, he spoke like a spectator, “As the tree falleth, so shall it lie,” he said. “Men have called that a gloomy text. It is the essence of all exultation. I am doing now what I have done all my life, what is the only happiness, what is the only universality. I am clinging to something. Let it fall, and there let it lie. Fools, you go about and see the kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal, and wise, and cosmopolitan, which is all that the devil can give you…all that he could offer to Christ only to be spurned away. I am doing what the truly wise do. When a child goes out into the garden and takes hold of a tree, saying, ‘Let this tree be all I have,’ that moment its roots take hold on hell and its branches on the stars. The joy I have is what the lover knows when a woman is everything. It is what a savage knows when his idol is everything. It is what I know when Notting Hill is everything. I have a city. Let it stand or fall.”
As he spoke the turf lifted itself like a living thing, and out of it rose slowly, like crested serpents, the roots of the oak. Then the great head of the tree, that seemed a green cloud among grey ones, swept the sky suddenly like a broom, and the whole tree heeled over like a ship, smashing every one in its fall.
Quando Turnbull la vide, cessò un istante di combattere, e si guardò intorno. La luce del sole calante gli colpì il volto; pareva quello di un bambino.
«Ho avuto la mia giovinezza», disse. Poi, strappando un’ascia a un uomo, si gettò nel folto delle lance di Shepherd’s Bush, e morì in qualche punto lontano, nel profondo delle loro schiere vacillanti. Poi la battaglia tornò a ruggire; ogni uomo di Notting Hill fu trucidato prima di notte.
Wayne stava presso un albero, solo, dopo la battaglia. Parecchi uomini gli si avvicinarono con le asce. Uno lo colpì. Il piede parve in parte scivolargli; ma protese la mano, e si tenne saldo contro l’albero.
Barker gli balzò dietro, la spada in pugno, e tremante d’eccitazione.
«Quanto è grande ora, mio signore», gridò, «l’Impero di Notting Hill?»
Wayne sorrise nel buio che s’addensava.
«Sempre grande così», disse, e roteò la spada in un semicerchio d’argento.
Barker cadde, ferito al collo; e Wilson balzò sopra il suo corpo come un gatto selvatico, avventandosi su Wayne. Nello stesso istante venne alle spalle del Signore del Leone Rosso un grido e un bagliore giallo, e una massa di alabardieri di West Kensington solcò il pendio, con l’erba fino al ginocchio, recando innanzi a sé il vessillo giallo della città, e gridando forte.
Nello stesso secondo Wilson cadde sotto la spada di Wayne, apparentemente schiacciato come una mosca. La grande spada si levò di nuovo come un uccello, ma Wilson parve levarsi con essa, e, spezzatasi la sua spada, balzò alla gola di Wayne come un cane. Il primo degli alabardieri gialli aveva raggiunto l’albero e alzò l’ascia sopra Wayne che lottava. Con una bestemmia il Re fece roteare la propria alabarda e ne calò la lama in faccia all’uomo. Egli barcollò, e rotolò giù per il pendio, proprio mentre il furioso Wilson veniva scagliato di nuovo sul dorso. E di nuovo fu in piedi, e di nuovo alla gola di Wayne. Poi fu scagliato ancora, ma questa volta ridendo trionfante. Stretto nella sua mano c’era il nastro rosso e giallo che Wayne portava come Prevosto di Notting Hill. L’aveva strappato dal luogo dove era stato portato per venticinque anni.
Con un grido gli uomini di West Kensington si strinsero attorno a Wayne, il grande vessillo giallo sventolante sopra il suo capo.
«Dov’è ora il tuo nastro, Prevosto?» gridò il capo di West Kensington. E si levò una risata.
Adam colpì il portabandiera e lo fece barcollare in avanti. Mentre il vessillo si chinava, egli afferrò le pieghe gialle e ne strappò un brandello. Un alabardiere lo colpì alla spalla, ferendolo a sangue.
«Ecco un colore!» gridò, cacciandosi il giallo nella cintura; «ed ecco!» gridò, indicando il proprio sangue, «Ecco l’altro».
Nel medesimo istante l’urto di un’alabarda improvvisa e pesante stese il Re tramortito o morto. Nelle folli visioni della coscienza che svaniva, egli rivide qualcosa che apparteneva a un tempo del tutto dimenticato, qualcosa che aveva veduto in qualche luogo, molto tempo prima, in un ristorante. Vide, con gli occhi annebbiati, il rosso e il giallo, i colori del Nicaragua.
Quin non vide la fine. Wilson, folle di gioia, balzò di nuovo su Adam Wayne, e la grande spada di Notting Hill fu roteata ancora una volta in alto. Allora gli uomini si abbassarono d’istinto al sibilante rumore della spada che scendeva giù dal cielo, e Wilson di Bayswater fu schiacciato e spazzato al suolo come una mosca. Di lui non rimase che un relitto; ma la lama che l’aveva spezzato era spezzata. Morendo egli aveva infranto la grande spada e il suo incantesimo; la spada di Wayne era spezzata, all’elsa. Un solo assalto del nemico trascinò Wayne di forza contro l’albero. Erano troppo vicini per usare l’alabarda o persino la spada; erano petto contro petto, persino narici contro narici. Ma Buck riuscì a liberare il pugnale.
«Uccidetelo!» gridò, con voce strana e soffocata. «Uccidetelo! Buono o malvagio, non è uno di noi! Non lasciatevi accecare dal volto!… Dio! non siamo forse stati accecati per tutto il tempo!» e ritrasse il braccio per un affondo e parve chiudere gli occhi.
Wayne non lasciò la mano che pendeva dal ramo dell’albero. Ma un possente sussulto gli attraversò il petto, e tutta la sua enorme figura, come un terremoto sopra grandi colline. E con quella convulsione di sforzo egli divelse il ramo dall’albero, con lingue di legno lacerato. E dopo averlo brandito una sola volta, lasciò cadere la clava scheggiata su Buck, spezzandogli il collo. L’ideatore della Grande Strada cadde a faccia in avanti, morto, col pugnale in una stretta d’acciaio.
«Per te e per me, e per tutti gli uomini valorosi, fratello mio», disse Wayne, nella sua strana cantilena, «c’è del buon vino versato nella locanda in capo al mondo».
Gli uomini ammassati fecero un altro slancio, un altro urto verso di lui; era troppo buio ormai per combattere con chiarezza. Egli si afferrò di nuovo alla quercia, questa volta ficcando la mano in un’ampia fenditura e stringendo, per così dire, le viscere dell’albero. L’intera folla, in numero di una trentina d’uomini, si slanciò per strapparlo via da essa; si aggrapparono con tutto il loro peso e il loro numero, e nulla si mosse. Una solitudine non avrebbe potuto essere più immobile di quel gruppo di uomini tesi nello sforzo. Poi si udì un debole suono.
«La sua mano sta scivolando», gridarono due uomini con esultanza.
«Non lo conoscete bene», disse un altro, cupo (un uomo della vecchia guerra). «Più probabilmente gli si spezza l’osso».
«Non è né l’uno né l’altro… per Dio, non è né l’uno né l’altro!» disse uno dei primi due.
«Che cos’è, allora?» chiese il secondo.
«L’albero sta cadendo», rispose.
«Come l’albero cade, così giacerà», disse la voce di Wayne dalle tenebre, e aveva la stessa aria dolce e insieme orribile che aveva avuto per tutto il tempo, di provenire da una grande distanza, da prima o da dopo l’evento. Anche quando si dibatteva come un’anguilla o si dimenava come un pazzo, parlava come uno spettatore. «Come l’albero cade, così giacerà», disse. «Gli uomini hanno chiamato quello un testo cupo. È l’essenza d’ogni esultanza. Sto facendo ora ciò che ho fatto per tutta la mia vita, ciò che è l’unica felicità, ciò che è l’unica universalità. Mi sto aggrappando a qualcosa. Che cada, e là giaccia. Stolti, voi andate in giro e vedete i regni della terra, e siete liberali, e saggi, e cosmopoliti, che è tutto ciò che il diavolo può darvi… tutto ciò che egli poté offrire a Cristo solo per esserne respinto. Io faccio ciò che fanno i veri saggi. Quando un bambino esce nel giardino e afferra un albero, dicendo: “Sia quest’albero tutto ciò che ho”, in quell’istante le sue radici afferrano l’inferno e i suoi rami le stelle. La gioia che ho è quella che l’amante conosce quando una donna è tutto. È quella che un selvaggio conosce quando il suo idolo è tutto. È quella che io conosco quando Notting Hill è tutto. Io ho una città. Che stia in piedi o cada».
Mentre parlava la zolla si sollevò come una cosa viva, e da essa si levarono lentamente, come serpenti crestati, le radici della quercia. Poi la grande cima dell’albero, che pareva una nuvola verde tra quelle grigie, spazzò il cielo d’un tratto come una scopa, e l’intero albero si rovesciò come una nave, schiacciando tutti nella sua caduta.
CHAPTER III
TWO VOICES
IN a place in which there was total darkness for hours, there was also for hours total silence. Then a voice spoke out of the darkness, no one could have told from where, and said aloud:
“So ends the Empire of Notting Hill. As it began in blood, so it ended in blood, and all things are always the same.”
And there was silence again, and then again there was a voice, but it had not the same tone; it seemed that it was not the same voice.
“If all things are always the same, it is because they are always heroic. If all things are always the same, it is because they are always new. To each man one soul only is given; to each soul only is given a little power…the power at some moments to outgrow and swallow up the stars. If age after age that power comes upon men, whatever gives it to them is great. Whatever makes men feel old is mean…an empire or a skin-flint shop. Whatever makes men feel young is great…a great war or a love story. And in the darkest of the books of God there is written a truth that is also a riddle. It is of the new things that men tire…of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young. There is no sceptic who does not feel that many have doubted before. There is no rich and fickle man who does not feel that all his novelties are ancient. There is no worshipper of change who does not feel upon his neck the vast weight of the weariness of the universe. But we who do the old things are fed by nature with a perpetual infancy. No man who is in love thinks that any one has been in love before. No woman who has a child thinks that there have been such things as children. No people that fight for their own city are haunted with the burden of the broken empires. Yes, oh dark voice, the world is always the same, for it is always unexpected.”
A little gust of wind brew through the night, and then the first voice answered:
“But in this world there are some, be they wise or foolish, whom nothing intoxicates. There are some who see all your disturbances like a cloud of flies. They know that while men will laugh at your Notting Hill, and will study and rehearse and sing of Athens and Jerusalem, Athens and Jerusalem were silly suburbs like your Notting Hill. They know that the earth itself is a suburb, and can feel only drearily and respectably amused as they move upon it.”
“They are philosophers or they are fools,” said the other voice. “They are not men. Men live, as I say, rejoicing from age to age in something fresher than progress…in the fact that with every baby a new sun and a new moon are made. If our ancient humanity were a single man, it might perhaps be that he would break down under the memory of so many loyalties, under the burden of so many diverse heroisms, under the load and terror of all the goodness of men. But it has pleased God so to isolate the individual soul that it can only learn of all other souls by hearsay, and to each one goodness and happiness come with the youth and violence of lightning, as momentary and as pure. And the doom of failure that lies on all human systems does not in real fact affect them any more than the worms of the inevitable grave affect a children’s game hi a meadow. Notting Hill has fallen; Notting Hill has died. But that is not the tremendous issue. Notting Hill has lived.”
“But if,” answered the other voice, “if what is achieved by all these efforts be only the common contentment of humanity, why do men so extravagantly toil and die in them? Has nothing been done by Notting Hill that any chance clump of farmers or clan of savages would not have done without it? What might have been done to Notting Hill if the world had been different may be a deep question; but there is a deeper. What could have happened to the world if Notting Hill had never been?”
The other voice replied:
“The same that would have happened to the world and all the starry systems if an apple-tree grew six apples instead of seven; something would have been eternally lost. There has never been anything in the world absolutely like Notting Hill. There will never be anything quite like it to the crack of doom. I cannot believe anything but that God loved it as He must surely love anything that is itself and unreplaceable. But even for that I do not care. If God, with all His thunders, hated it, I loved it.”
And with the voice a tall, strange figure lifted itself out of the debris in the half-darkness.
The other voice came after a long pause, and as it were hoarsely.
“But suppose the whole matter were really a hocus-pocus. Suppose that whatever meaning you may choose in your fancy to give to it, the real meaning of the whole was mockery. Suppose it was all folly. Suppose…”
“I have been in it,” answered the voice from the tall and strange figure, “and I know it was not.”
A smaller figure seemed half to rise in the dark.
“Suppose I am God,” said the voice, “and suppose I made the world in idleness. Suppose the stars, that you think eternal, are only the idiot fireworks of an everlasting schoolboy. Suppose the sun and the moon, to which you sing alternately, are only the two eyes of one vast and sneering giant, opened alternately in a never-ending wink. Suppose the trees, in my eyes, are as foolish as enormous toad-stools. Suppose Socrates and Charlemagne are to me only beasts, made funnier by walking on their hind legs. Suppose I am God, and having made things, laugh at them.”
“And suppose I am man,” answered the other. “And suppose that I give the answer that shatters even a laugh. Suppose I do not laugh back at you, do not blaspheme you, do not curse you. But suppose, standing up straight under the sky, with every power of my being, I thank you for the fools’ paradise you have made. Suppose I praise you, with a literal pain of ecstacy, for the jest that has brought me so terrible a joy. If we have taken the child’s games, and given them the seriousness of a Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque Dutch garden with the blood of martyrs, we have turned a nursery into a temple. I ask you, in the name of Heaven, who wins?”
CAPITOLO III
DUE VOCI
IN un luogo in cui per ore vi fu tenebra assoluta, vi fu anche per ore un assoluto silenzio. Poi una voce parlò dalle tenebre, nessuno avrebbe potuto dire da dove, e disse ad alta voce:
«Così finisce l’Impero di Notting Hill. Come cominciò nel sangue, così finì nel sangue, e tutte le cose sono sempre le medesime.»
E vi fu di nuovo silenzio, e poi di nuovo vi fu una voce, ma non aveva lo stesso tono; parve che non fosse la stessa voce.
«Se tutte le cose sono sempre le medesime, è perché sono sempre eroiche. Se tutte le cose sono sempre le medesime, è perché sono sempre nuove. A ciascun uomo è data una sola anima; a ciascuna anima è dato soltanto un piccolo potere…il potere, in certi momenti, di superare e inghiottire le stelle. Se età dopo età quel potere discende sugli uomini, qualunque cosa lo dia loro è grande. Qualunque cosa faccia sentire vecchi gli uomini è meschina…un impero o una bottega da spilorci. Qualunque cosa faccia sentire giovani gli uomini è grande…una grande guerra o una storia d’amore. E nel più oscuro dei libri di Dio è scritta una verità che è anche un enigma. Sono le cose nuove che stancano gli uomini…le mode e le proposte e i miglioramenti e il mutamento. Sono le cose antiche che stupiscono e inebriano. Sono le cose antiche che sono giovani. Non v’è scettico che non senta che molti hanno dubitato prima di lui. Non v’è uomo ricco e volubile che non senta che tutte le sue novità sono antiche. Non v’è adoratore del mutamento che non senta sul proprio collo il peso immenso della stanchezza dell’universo. Ma noi che facciamo le cose antiche siamo nutriti dalla natura con una perpetua infanzia. Nessun uomo che sia in amore pensa che qualcuno sia stato in amore prima di lui. Nessuna donna che abbia un figlio pensa che siano mai esistite cose simili ai figli. Nessun popolo che combatta per la propria città è ossessionato dal fardello degli imperi caduti. Sì, oh voce oscura, il mondo è sempre il medesimo, perché è sempre inatteso.»
Una piccola folata di vento soffiò attraverso la notte, e allora la prima voce rispose:
«Ma in questo mondo ve ne sono alcuni, siano essi savi o folli, che nulla inebria. Ve ne sono alcuni che vedono tutti i vostri tumulti come un nugolo di mosche. Sanno che, mentre gli uomini rideranno della vostra Notting Hill, e studieranno e reciteranno e canteranno di Atene e di Gerusalemme, Atene e Gerusalemme furono sciocchi sobborghi come la vostra Notting Hill. Sanno che la terra stessa è un sobborgo, e sanno provare soltanto un tetro e rispettabile divertimento mentre si muovono su di essa.»
«Sono filosofi oppure sono sciocchi», disse l’altra voce. «Non sono uomini. Gli uomini vivono, come dico, esultando di età in età per qualcosa di più fresco del progresso…per il fatto che con ogni bimbo si fanno un nuovo sole e una nuova luna. Se la nostra antica umanità fosse un solo uomo, forse accadrebbe che egli crollasse sotto il ricordo di così tante fedeltà, sotto il fardello di così tanti diversi eroismi, sotto il peso e il terrore di tutta la bontà degli uomini. Ma è piaciuto a Dio isolare a tal punto l’anima individuale che essa può apprendere di tutte le altre anime soltanto per sentito dire, e a ciascuna la bontà e la felicità giungono con la giovinezza e la violenza del fulmine, momentanee e pure. E la condanna del fallimento che grava su tutti i sistemi umani non li tocca in realtà più di quanto i vermi dell’inevitabile tomba tocchino il gioco dei bambini in un prato. Notting Hill è caduta; Notting Hill è morta. Ma non è questa la questione tremenda. Notting Hill è vissuta.»
«Ma se», rispose l’altra voce, «se ciò che è conseguito da tutti questi sforzi non è che il comune contentamento dell’umanità, perché mai gli uomini penano e muoiono così smisuratamente per esso? Nulla è stato fatto da Notting Hill che un qualsiasi casuale gruppo di contadini o clan di selvaggi non avrebbe fatto senza di essa? Che cosa avrebbe potuto essere fatto a Notting Hill se il mondo fosse stato diverso può essere una domanda profonda; ma ve n’è una più profonda. Che cosa sarebbe potuto accadere al mondo se Notting Hill non fosse mai esistita?»
L’altra voce replicò:
«Lo stesso che sarebbe accaduto al mondo e a tutti i sistemi stellati se un melo desse sei mele invece di sette; qualcosa sarebbe andato eternamente perduto. Non vi è mai stato nulla al mondo assolutamente simile a Notting Hill. Non vi sarà mai nulla di simile fino allo schianto del giudizio. Non posso credere ad altro se non che Dio l’amò come deve certamente amare qualsiasi cosa sia se stessa e insostituibile. Ma nemmeno di questo mi curo. Se Dio, con tutti i suoi tuoni, l’avesse odiata, io l’ho amata.»
E con la voce una figura alta e strana si levò dalle macerie nella semioscurità.
L’altra voce giunse dopo una lunga pausa, e come rauca.
«Ma supponi che l’intera faccenda fosse davvero un abracadabra. Supponi che, qualunque significato tu voglia nella tua fantasia darle, il vero significato del tutto fosse beffa. Supponi che fosse tutta follia. Supponi…»
«Vi sono stato dentro», rispose la voce dalla figura alta e strana, «e so che non lo era.»
Una figura più piccola parve levarsi a metà nel buio.
«Supponi che io sia Dio», disse la voce, «e supponi che io abbia fatto il mondo per ozio. Supponi che le stelle, che tu credi eterne, non siano che gli idioti fuochi d’artificio di un eterno scolaretto. Supponi che il sole e la luna, cui tu canti alternatamente, non siano che i due occhi di un solo immane e sogghignante gigante, aperti alternatamente in un ammiccare senza fine. Supponi che gli alberi, ai miei occhi, siano sciocchi come enormi funghi velenosi. Supponi che Socrate e Carlomagno siano per me soltanto bestie, rese più buffe dal camminare sulle zampe posteriori. Supponi che io sia Dio, e, avendo fatto le cose, ne rida.»
«E supponi che io sia uomo», rispose l’altro. «E supponi che io dia la risposta che infrange perfino una risata. Supponi che io non ti risponda con una risata, non ti bestemmi, non ti maledica. Ma supponi che, ergendomi diritto sotto il cielo, con ogni potere del mio essere, io ti ringrazi per il paradiso degli sciocchi che hai fatto. Supponi che io ti lodi, con un letterale dolore d’estasi, per lo scherzo che mi ha recato una gioia così terribile. Se abbiamo preso i giochi del fanciullo, e dato loro la serietà di una Crociata, se abbiamo intriso il tuo grottesco giardino olandese col sangue dei martiri, abbiamo mutato una stanza dei bambini in un tempio. Ti chiedo, in nome del Cielo, chi vince?»
The sky close about the crest of the hills and trees was beginning to turn from black to grey, with a random suggestion of the morning. The slight figure seemed to crawl towards the larger one, and the voice was more human.
“But suppose, friend,” it said, “suppose that, in a bitterer and more real sense, it was all a mockery. Suppose that there had been, from the beginning of these great wars, one who watched them with a sense that is beyond expression, a sense of detachment, of responsibility, of irony, of agony. Suppose that there were one who knew it was all a joke.”
The tall figure answered:
“He could not know it. For it was not all a joke.”
And a gust of wind blew away some clouds that sealed the sky-line, and showed a strip of silver behind his great dark legs. Then the other voice came, having crept nearer still.
“Adam Wayne,” it said, “there are men who confess only in articulo mortis; there are people who blame themselves only when they can no longer help others. I am one of them. Here, upon the field of the bloody end of it all, I come to tell you plainly what you would never understand before. Do you know who I am?”
“I know you, Auberon Quin,” answered the tall figure, “and I shall be glad to unburden your spirit of anything that lies upon it.”
“Adam Wayne,” said the other voice, “of what I have to say you cannot in common reason be glad to unburden me. Wayne, it was all a joke. When I made these cities, I cared no more for them than I care for a centaur, or a merman, or a fish with legs, or a pig with feathers, or any other absurdity. When I spoke to you solemnly and encouragingly about the flag of your freedom and the peace of your city, I was playing a vulgar practical joke on an honest gentleman, a vulgar practical joke that has lasted for twenty years. Though no one could believe it of me perhaps, it is the truth that I am a man both timid and tender-hearted. I never dared in the early days of your hope, or the central days of your supremacy, to tell you this; I never dared to break the colossal calm of your face. God knows why I should do it now, when my farce has ended in tragedy and the ruin of all your people! But I say it now. Wayne, it was done as a joke.”
There was silence, and the freshening breeze blew the sky clearer and clearer, leaving great spaces of the white dawn.
At last Wayne said, very slowly:
“You did it all only as a joke?”
“Yes,” said Quin.
“When you conceived the idea,” went on Wayne, dreamily, “of an army for Bayswater and a flag for Notting Hill, there was no gleam, no suggestion in your mind that such things might be real and passionate?”
“No,” answered Auberon, turning his round, white face to the morning with a dull and splendid sincerity; “I had none at all.”
Wayne sprang down from the height above him and held out his hand.
“I will not stop to thank you,” he said, with a curious joy in his voice, “for the great good for the world you have actually wrought. All that I think of that I have said to you a moment ago, even when I thought that your voice was the voice of a derisive omnipotence, its laughter older than the winds of heaven. But let me say what is immediate and true. You and I, Auberon Quin, have both of us throughout our lives been again and again called mad. And we are mad. We are mad, because we are not two men but one man. We are mad, because we are two lobes of the same brain, and that brain has been cloven in two. And if you ask for the proof of it, it is not hard to find. It is not merely that you, the humourist, have been in these dark days stripped of the joy of gravity. It is not merely that I, the fanatic, have had to grope without humour. It is that though we seem to be opposite iii everything, we have been opposite like man and woman, aiming at the same moment at the same practical thing. We are the father and the mother of the Charter of the Cities.”
Quin looked down at the debris of leaves and timber, the relics of the battle and stampede, now glistening in the glowing daylight, and finally said:
“Yet nothing can alter the antagonism…the fact that I laughed at these things and you adored them.”
Wayne’s wild face flamed with something god-like, as he turned it to be struck by the sunrise.
“I know of something that will alter that antagonism, something that is outside us, something that you and I have all our lives perhaps taken too little account of. The equal and eternal human being will alter that antagonism, for the human being sees no real antagonism between laughter and respect, the human being, the common man, whom mere geniuses like you and me, can only worship like a god. When dark and dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic, the pure satirist. We have between us remedied a great wrong. We have lifted the modern cities into that poetry which every one who knows mankind knows to be immeasurably more common than the commonplace. But in healthy people there is no war between us. We are but the two lobes of the brain of a ploughman. Laughter and love are everywhere. The cathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friend at the friend. Auberon Quin, we have been too long separated, let us go out together. You have a halberd and I a sword, let us start our wanderings over the world. For we are its two essentials. Come, it is already day.”
In the blank white light Auberon hesitated a moment. Then he made the formal salute with his halberd, and they went away together into the unknown world.
THE END.
Il cielo stretto attorno alla cresta delle colline e degli alberi cominciava a mutare dal nero al grigio, con un vago accenno del mattino. La figura esile pareva strisciare verso quella più grande, e la voce era più umana.
«Ma supponi, amico», disse, «supponi che, in un senso più amaro e più reale, fosse tutto una beffa. Supponi che vi fosse stato, fin dal principio di queste grandi guerre, uno che le osservava con un sentimento che è oltre ogni espressione, un sentimento di distacco, di responsabilità, di ironia, di angoscia. Supponi che vi fosse uno che sapeva che era tutto uno scherzo.»
La figura alta rispose:
«Non poteva saperlo. Poiché non era tutto uno scherzo.»
E una raffica di vento spazzò via alcune nubi che sigillavano la linea dell’orizzonte, e mostrò una striscia d’argento dietro le sue grandi gambe oscure. Poi giunse l’altra voce, essendosi insinuata ancora più vicino.
«Adam Wayne», disse, «vi sono uomini che confessano solo in articulo mortis; vi sono persone che si biasimano soltanto quando non possono più aiutare gli altri. Io sono uno di questi. Qui, sul campo del sanguinoso epilogo di tutto, vengo a dirti apertamente ciò che non avresti mai compreso prima. Sai chi sono io?»
«Ti conosco, Auberon Quin», rispose la figura alta, «e sarò lieto di sgravare il tuo spirito di qualunque cosa lo opprima.»
«Adam Wayne», disse l’altra voce, «di ciò che ho da dire non puoi, per semplice ragione, essere lieto di sgravarmi. Wayne, era tutto uno scherzo. Quando creai queste città, non me ne importava più di quanto mi importi di un centauro, o di un tritone, o di un pesce con le gambe, o di un maiale con le piume, o di qualsiasi altra assurdità. Quando ti parlai solennemente e con incoraggiamento della bandiera della tua libertà e della pace della tua città, stavo giocando un volgare scherzo a un onesto gentiluomo, un volgare scherzo durato vent’anni. Benché forse nessuno potrebbe crederlo di me, è la verità che sono un uomo insieme timido e di cuore tenero. Non osai mai, nei primi giorni della tua speranza, né nei giorni centrali della tua supremazia, dirti questo; non osai mai rompere la calma colossale del tuo volto. Dio sa perché dovrei farlo ora, che la mia farsa è finita in tragedia e nella rovina di tutto il tuo popolo! Ma lo dico ora. Wayne, fu fatto per scherzo.»
Vi fu silenzio, e la brezza che si ravvivava spazzava il cielo sempre più limpido, lasciando grandi spazi della bianca alba.
Alla fine Wayne disse, assai lentamente:
«Facesti tutto questo soltanto per scherzo?»
«Sì», disse Quin.
«Quando concepisti l’idea», proseguì Wayne, sognante, «di un esercito per Bayswater e di una bandiera per Notting Hill, non vi fu alcun barlume, alcun accenno nella tua mente che simili cose potessero essere reali e appassionate?»
«No», rispose Auberon, volgendo il suo volto tondo e bianco verso il mattino con una spenta e splendida sincerità; «non ne ebbi alcuno.»
Wayne balzò giù dall’altura sopra di lui e tese la mano.
«Non mi fermerò a ringraziarti», disse, con una curiosa gioia nella voce, «per il grande bene che hai realmente operato per il mondo. Tutto ciò che penso di quanto ti ho detto un momento fa, persino quando credevo che la tua voce fosse la voce di un’onnipotenza beffarda, il cui riso è più antico dei venti del cielo. Ma lascia che dica ciò che è immediato e vero. Tu ed io, Auberon Quin, siamo stati entrambi, lungo tutta la nostra vita, più e più volte chiamati pazzi. E siamo pazzi. Siamo pazzi, perché non siamo due uomini ma un solo uomo. Siamo pazzi, perché siamo due lobi dello stesso cervello, e quel cervello è stato spaccato in due. E se chiedi la prova di ciò, non è difficile da trovare. Non è soltanto che tu, l’umorista, sei stato in questi giorni oscuri spogliato della gioia della gravità. Non è soltanto che io, il fanatico, ho dovuto brancolare senza umorismo. È che, benché sembriamo opposti in tutto, siamo stati opposti come l’uomo e la donna, mirando nel medesimo istante alla medesima cosa pratica. Siamo il padre e la madre della Carta delle Città.»
Quin abbassò lo sguardo sui detriti di foglie e legname, le reliquie della battaglia e della fuga precipitosa, ora luccicanti nella luce ardente del giorno, e infine disse:
«Eppure nulla può mutare l’antagonismo… il fatto che io ho riso di queste cose e tu le hai adorate.»
Il volto selvaggio di Wayne fiammeggiò di qualcosa di divino, mentre lo volgeva a essere colpito dall’aurora.
«Conosco qualcosa che muterà quell’antagonismo, qualcosa che è al di fuori di noi, qualcosa di cui tu ed io per tutta la vita forse abbiamo tenuto troppo poco conto. L’eguale ed eterno essere umano muterà quell’antagonismo, poiché l’essere umano non vede alcun reale antagonismo tra il riso e il rispetto, l’essere umano, l’uomo comune, che meri geni come te e me possono solo adorare come un dio. Quando vengono giorni oscuri e tetri, tu ed io siamo necessari, il puro fanatico, il puro satirico. Abbiamo insieme rimediato a un grande torto. Abbiamo innalzato le città moderne in quella poesia che chiunque conosca l’umanità sa essere incommensurabilmente più comune del comune. Ma nelle persone sane non c’è guerra tra noi. Non siamo che i due lobi del cervello di un aratore. Il riso e l’amore sono ovunque. Le cattedrali, edificate nelle epoche che amavano Dio, sono piene di grotteschi blasfemi. La madre ride di continuo del bambino, l’amante ride di continuo dell’amante, la moglie del marito, l’amico dell’amico. Auberon Quin, siamo stati separati troppo a lungo, usciamo insieme. Tu hai un’alabarda ed io una spada, cominciamo i nostri vagabondaggi per il mondo. Poiché noi siamo i suoi due elementi essenziali. Vieni, è già giorno.»
Nella bianca luce vuota Auberon esitò un momento. Poi fece il saluto formale con la sua alabarda, e se ne andarono insieme nel mondo ignoto.
FINE.