Indeed, was there ever a royal household that approached the miraculous more closely? In the kitchen reigned a master of the culinary art, the chef of the best hotel in the country, who in other circumstances would not have been satisfied with double the wages of a general and was now getting only a dollar a day. Yet he was using every bit of his skill. He had never been so eager to please the palate of him whom he served. The roast he prepared was the finest piece of meat to be selected from among the two hundred oxen that daily gave up their lives to the army for the fatherland. The men who served the roast on silver platters, wrought by pupils of Benvenuto for the ancestors of the house, were generals of their trade, who in peace times had had their clothes built in London, and stood about tremblingly awaiting each sign from their master. And this entire retinue, this whole princely household, functioned quite automatically, and—entirely without cost! The master for whom every one slaved never once had to perform that inevitable nuisance of putting his hand in his pocket to draw out his purse. The gasoline circulated inexhaustibly through the veins of the three motor cars, which lounged day and night on the marble flagging of the courtyard. As by magic everything flowed in that eye and palate could desire.
No servant asked for wages, everything seemed to be there of itself, as in fairy castles where it is enough to wish for a thing in order to have it.
But that was not all. It was not the whole of the miracle that the table spread itself every day of the month and the store-rooms filled themselves with provisions. When the first of the month came round, bank-notes instead of bills came fluttering into the house.
No worry, no disputing, no stinting of one's self to be borne with a sigh. With an air of boredom one stuffed his pockets with greenbacks, which were really quite superfluous in this lazy man's paradise that the war had opened up to its vassals.
One single lowering cloud now and then streaked the shining firmament of this wonderland and cast its shadow on the brow of His Excellency. Sometimes his pure joy was disturbed by the thought that the fairy tale might give way to reality and he might be awakened from the glorious dream. It was not peace that His Excellency dreaded. He never even thought of peace. But what if the wall so artfully constructed out of human bodies should begin to totter some day? What if the enemy were to penetrate all the fortifications, and discipline were to give way to panic, and the mighty wall should dissolve into its component parts, human beings fleeing madly to save their lives? Then the "Victor of ——," the almighty fairy tale king, would sink back again into the sordid commonplace of old. He would have to eke out his existence in some obscure corner, crowd his trophies into some modest apartment, and content himself, like other discharged officers, with being a coffeehouse king. Were he to suffer a single defeat, the world would instantly forget its enthusiasm. Another general would assume the reign, another sovereign would fly through the town in a motor car, and the vast retinue of servants would reverently bow before their new ruler. The old one would be nothing but a past episode, a scarecrow revealed, which any sparrow impudently besmirches.
The general's pudgy hand involuntarily clenched itself, and the dreaded frown, the "storm-signal" that his own soldiers, as well as the enemy, had learned to fear, appeared for a moment on his prominent forehead. Then his face cleared again, and His Excellency looked around proudly.
No! The Victor of —— was not afraid. His wall stood firm and swayed not. For three months every report that emissaries brought to camp had told of the enormous preparations being made by the enemy. For three months they had been storing up ammunition and gathering together their forces for the tremendous offensive. And the offensive had begun the night before. The general knew that the crowd gaily thronging in the sun would not read in the newspaper till the next morning that out at the front a fierce battle had been raging for the past twenty hours, and hardly sixty miles from the promenade shells were bursting without cease, and a heavy rain of hot iron was pouring down upon his soldiers. Three infantry attacks had already been reported as repulsed, and now the artillery was hammering with frenzied fury, a prologue to fresh conflicts during the night.
Well, let them come!
With a jerk, His Excellency sat up, and while his fingers beat on the table in tune to the Blue Danube, a tense expression came into his face, as though he could hear the terrific drumfire raging at the front like a hurricane. His preparations had been made: the human reservoir had been filled to overflowing. Two hundred thousand strong young lads of the very right age lay behind the lines ready at the proper moment to be thrown in front of the steam-roller until it caught and stuck in a marsh of blood and bones. Just let them come! The more, the merrier! The Victor of —— was prepared to add another branch to his laurels, and his eyes sparkled like the medals on his breast.
His adjutant got up from the table next to his, approached hesitatingly, and whispered a few words in His Excellency's ear.