1
It was after the opening of the new parliament. The sun streamed as though with square patches of molten gold along the white palaces of the town, touching with blue what was shadow in the corners.
Two regiments of grenadiers, red and blue, stood in two double lines, drawn up along the principal streets which led from the Parliament House to the Imperial. The crowd pressed and tossed and cheered; all the windows, open wide, swarmed with heads; people looked on from every balcony. A shot thundered from Fort Wenceslas on the sea; the emperor returned; the grenadiers presented arms in company after company....
The lancers lead the van, blue and white, with streaming pennants at the points of their lances, six squadrons of them. The whole strength of the throne-guards, white, with breastplates of glittering gold flashing in the sunlight above the black satin skins of the stallions, ride halberd on thigh, surrounding the gently swaying state-carriages, scintillating with rich gilding and bright crystal and two of them crowned with the imperial crown, with teams of six and eight plumed greys. The horses foam over their bits, impatient, nervously pawing the ground, prancing because of the slow, ceremonious pace along the blinding, flagged roadway. In the first coach, the master of ceremonies, the Count of Threma; in the second, with the crown and the team of eight—and the roar of the cheering rises from behind the hedge of soldiers—the emperor, his uniform all gold, his robes of scarlet and ermine, his crown upon his head. It is the only time that the people have seen their emperor wear his crown.
And they cheer. But the emperor makes no acknowledgment: through the glass of the coach he looks out, to left and right in turns, at the crowd, with a proud smile of self-consciousness and victory; and his face, full of race, full of force, cold with will, proud with authority, is inaccessible in its smile as that of a Roman emperor on his triumphal entry.
It is a triumphal entry, this return from the Parliament House to his Imperial: a triumph over that which they denied him and upon which he has now laid his heavy hand, showing them all that his mere will can bend them to his word and purpose. And the cheers rise louder and louder from that capricious crowd, restrained like a woman by a ruler whom it now adores for his strength and admires for his imperial might, upon which he leans, as he passes from the Parliament House to his own palace, as though it were a whole army that lived upon his nod; and louder and louder, louder and louder the cheers ring out that sunny afternoon over the marble houses; and the emperor smiles continually, as though his smile meant:
"Cheer away! What else can you do but cheer?..."
In the next coach rides the Duke of Xara, robed, crowned; he stares rigidly over the vociferating crowd with the same glance that his mother reserves for the populace. In the next to that, the new governor-general of the capital, the head of the emperor's military household, the Duke of Mena-Doni, a rougher soldier than the Marquis of Dazzara and a less practised courtier, under whose military fist the white capital, like a beaten slave, crouched low during the martial law proclaimed after a single hour of disturbance that ventured to follow upon the emperor's decision to dissolve the house of deputies. His coarse, sensual mouth smiles with the same smile as that of the emperor, whose rude force he seems to impersonate; and he too seems to say:
"Cheer away, shout hurrah!"
Then the following carriages: the imperial chancellor, Count Myxila; the ministers: seven of them forming part of the twelve who wished to resign, the others chosen from among the most authoritative of the old nobility in the house of peers itself!
Cheer away, shout hurrah!
Behind the coaches of the higher court-officials, the Xara cuirassiers, the crown-prince's own regiment; behind them, a regiment of colonials: Africans, black as polished ebony, with eyes like beads, their thick mouths thrust forwards, clad in the muslin-like snow of their burnouses; behind them, two regiments of hussars on heavy horses, in their long, green, gold-frogged coats and their tall busbies.
Was ever parliament opened thus before, with such a display of military force? And outside the town, on the high parade-grounds, do not the people know that there are troops drawn together from every province, camping there for the manoeuvres, the date of which has been accelerated? And the increased garrisons of the forts, the squadron in the harbour? Do the people themselves feel that they can do nothing else than cheer and is that why they are cheering now, happy once more in their cheering, with Roman docility and southern submission, enamoured of the emperor because of the weight of his crushing fist, loving the crown-prince for the attractive charm of his attitude in the north, or perhaps because they think him interesting after an unsuccessful attempt on his life?
And they seem not to feel that, through the grenadiers presenting arms, they see neither the emperor nor the crown-prince saluting; they cheer away, loving them in spite, perhaps because, of their indifference; they cheer away like madmen....
Slowly the procession wends its way along the interminable main streets. The whole city, despite its marble, trembles with the clatter of the horses' hoofs upon the flagged pavement. Between the front escort and the endless escort in the rear, the state-carriages, with their glittering throne-guards, shimmer like a kind of jewel, small, rare, carefully guarded. The cavalry are at this moment the soul of Lipara, their echoing step its heart-beat; and between the grenadiers and the tall houses the massed and cheering populace seems to have hardly room to breathe.
The procession approaches the Imperial. Along the immense marble fore-court the lancers and cuirassiers range themselves on three sides, before the wings and along the front. Outside them the guards are drawn up in line. The Africans close off the courtyard....
The carriages pull up; and the emperor alights. With the crown-prince by his side, he goes through the vestibule up the stairs. The corridors of the palace swarm with gold-laced uniforms; a packed suite crowds up behind Oscar and Othomar. The master of the robes, with twelve grooms of the bed-chamber, comes towards the emperor, who takes off his crown, as does the crown-prince; their robes are unfastened for them.
They go to the great white hall, white with the Corinthian columns with gilt capitals. The empress and the Princess Thera are there, surrounded by their ladies. It is a great day: in this sun-apotheosis of the opening of parliament the monarchy is triumphing over the threats of the future and deferring that future itself. The empress, in her trailing pale-mauve velvet, steps towards her spouse and curtseys before him ceremoniously. The princess, the mistress of the robes, all the ladies curtsey....
Outside, in front, the square is now filled by the multitude; an excited popular clamour surges up against the immovable palace, as it were the sea against a rock. The doors of the centre balcony are opened. The emperor and the prince will show themselves....
"Only just salute once," whispers the emperor to his son, sternly.
The sun outside rains down gold upon the swarming mass, tinging it with many-changing, chameleon, southern tints between the white, motionless wings of the Imperial, whose caryatids look down placidly. The imperial pair step on the balcony. Hats are thrown up towards them; the yelling bellows with a shout as from a single noisy, vulgar throat and echoes through the open doors against the gilt ceiling and columns of the white hall. The empress is frightened by it, turns pale; her breath catches....
On the balcony the Emperor of Liparia salutes his excited people with a solitary wave of the hand; the Duke of Xara bows his head slightly.