The Princess Sophia

by E. F. Benson

But the Prince’s suggestion had more in it than Malakopf perceived at once, and than the Prince perceived at all. Any Bill—such was the autocratic law of Rhodopé—introduced by the Crown passed into law. The privilege had rarely been used, and this prerogative was practically obsolete; but there could be no doubt, as the Prince said, that the Crown was constitutionally within its rights in so acting. Thus, if Prince Petros introduced the Bill in the Princess’s name, and stuck to it, it could only fail to become law by a reconstitution of the power of the Crown—in other words, by a revolution. In this way Malakopf would be rid not only of the Princess, but also of the Prince, who, despite his speech against it, would have voted for it. This formed part of his original, but at present undetailed, programme, and he was fairly astounded at the fitness of his opportunity. He could kill both with one stone. So, after a moment, he corrected himself.

‘But I am not sure,’ he said, ‘that you are not right after all. Perhaps yours is the simpler plan, for it makes a revolution inevitable. I will think it over. Meanwhile, may I ask for a whisky-and-soda? The night is hot for this time of the year.’

The two were sitting on the great north veranda of the Palace. The air was exquisitely fresh, with an easterly breeze, though still, as Malakopf had said, warm for October. But a divine mellowness is over October in Rhodopé, the sky is a perfect turquoise from sunrise to sunset, and to sunrise again an inimitable sapphire. The French season at its height, and a band from the Casino gardens close by made the night an echo of the brain of Weber. The moon, swung full south, cast a great square of shadow from the Palace over the garden, and the metallic tinkle of the water from the bronze Triton fountain falling into its basin came from the darkness. Beyond, a balustrade of Pentelic marble bounded the headlong cliff below, and in the hollow beneath the lamps of Amandos twinkled innumerably. On the great range of Balkan peaks to the north the earliest snow of the year had already fallen, and the giants of the range were silver spearheads charging the sky. To the west, twelve miles away, the lights of Mavromáti, low on the horizon and small as a glow-worm, were more like a reflection of stars than an authentic constellation. But from minute to minute a luminous pencil of colour, now scarlet, now red, now yellow, shot with penetrating clearness across the land, and even dyed the white Palace walls for a moment in its passage, marking the rotation of the harbour lights. The murmur of busy folk buzzed like the swarming of bees from the town, and now and again a sudden shriller note betokened some infinitesimal excitement of the street.

But the perfection of the Southern night roused no echo in the heart of Petros; his thoughts were intent on himself. Little he recked of the ebony shadows, the white fields of moonshine, the beauty of the muffled sounds of the night, and in so far as they reached him, they reached him only by the sense of lordship. Soon, he thought, would the polychrome light from Mavromáti be his; his, too, would be the cicala that sang in the bushes; his the luminous evidence of mankind that shone from the lights of Amandos. For his outlook was but puny; nothing was great if it was not his, nothing was beautiful unless it owned his supremacy. Nor was Malakopf more poetically-minded: the spearheads of the Balkan were only interesting because the map of Europe traced across that untracked whiteness the boundaries of Rhodopé; the strains of Weber that came from the club gardens were only beautiful because he had invested a large sum of money in the Casino, and music was an attraction to the visitors. Once President of this Republic of Rhodopé, he would have willingly driven the snow-plough across the Balkans to mark the limits of his Presidency, if thereby he could add an acre to its mileage, and painted the country magenta to correspond with the latest map.

But though the glory of the Southern night gave him no food for admiration, the last suggestion of the Prince was worth the expenditure of brain tissue, and the more he considered it, the more suitable did the Prince’s unwitting scheme appear. It would be necessary, it is true, to alter the proposed chronology of events, and reserve for the last meeting of the Assembly before the Christmas holiday the introduction of the new Bill. The House should not be asked to vote on that day; the Bill alone should be read, and notice given that the voting would take place immediately before the prorogation on December 31.

The thought of the scene which would take place on that day almost dazzled him. The Assembly at Rhodopé had never been, since he had known it first, a House of melodrama. But on December 31 the scene would surely beggar the Adelphi Theatre, London. From the throne the Prince would make a regretful, and no doubt a very foolish, speech on this Bill for abolishing all gambling within the principality, and since he, as Sophia’s representative, introduced the Bill, the Assembly would, on precedent and constitution, record indeed their votes, but, however the voting went, would be compelled to accept it. But he knew them very little if such was the event. In his speech the Prince would, as Malakopf had planned the scene, be forced to support the wishes and the commands of his wife. She, so he would say, had intended to introduce the Bill herself, but had been unable to face the situation, and had left the doing of it to him. All her subjects knew that she had opened the club herself, knew also the assiduity with which she attended its sessions. With what face now was she to order its abolition, when the institution had taken such deep hold on her people? But her purpose was irrevocably fixed. Abolished it should be, and she claimed (through her husband) the ancient right of the Crown. For a week past there would have been but one subject for talk in the principality; indignation would have flared like a bonfire since the Bill had been introduced. Half Rhodopé spent rapturous evenings in the Casino; they would not lightly give them up. But the Prince, as primed by Malakopf, would speak with strength and conviction. He would commit himself hopelessly to a policy of loyalty to his wife. His position (he would say) was most trying, but he was bound by every code of honour to support without reservation her whom he represented. Such were her commands. The Bill was introduced by the Crown; let them vote if they pleased; the measure became law.

Malakopf’s eye glowed. He saw himself rise before the assembled House, and to the Prince’s dumb and infinite dismay, oppose the Bill. Such a course, he knew, was without shadow of precedent. He would adopt it without attempt at excuse. He would denounce the Princess. As they all knew, she spent her holidays at Monte Carlo—much needed holidays, indeed! She was worn out, was she not, with the prosecution of State affairs! His brother ministers knew how wide and numerous were the yawns with which she honoured their audiences. The Bill could not become law; simply it was one of the things that did not happen. Yet it must become law unless they took a line of their own. On his part, he begged to move that the question of the Bill before the House be postponed a moment, for he had another proposal to make. The House (so he told himself in these imaginings) would vote on the postponement of the Bill for the abolition of gambling; the House would carry it. Then he would propose nothing short of a revolution, the dethronement of the line of Ægina, who, in the person of the Princess, sought to curtail the inalienable right of gambling inaugurated by herself. In this, and in no other way, could liberty be secured them.

But it was far better that the Bill, if such was to be his policy, should be introduced just before the Christmas vacation, and that no voting should take place till the last day of December, to give a whole week for the fermentation of righteous wrath to come to a head. And it would not be a bad thing to let a hint of what was coming be in the air, to let the free spirit of the citizens chafe at the thought of so grievous a curtailment of their liberties, to let Distrust flap its obscene wings about the streets. Again his own investment in the club itself had turned out most profitable, for the half-year’s dividend had been declared at 20 per cent. This, too, he had no mind to lose.

By the beginning of December it was already a matter for street-corner gossip as to whether there was any truth in this extraordinary report that the Princess Sophia would introduce by the mouth of her husband a Bill for the abolition of gambling. To most the thing seemed scarcely credible, and the more loyal of her subjects flatly refused to entertain so preposterous a suggestion. It was inconceivable that the queen of gamblers should attempt to deprive her subjects of the right to indulge in her own favourite pursuit, and it was bitter to contemplate her at Monte Carlo directing from the St. Peter’s of the goddess the closing of this remote little chapel. Others, who pretended to more authentic information, declared that she was acting under the persuasion of the Prince, who, as it was well known, did not frequent the club, and though he had invested in it, rather disapproved of it than otherwise. By degrees this view of the question obtained a following, and as it grew by so much the popularity of the Prince waned and the delight of Malakopf waxed. Petros had never been seen at the club since his wife’s departure, and this alone was sufficient to raise a prejudice against him. The air was full of disquietude, which increased as the days went on.

This disquietude was only not shared by Malakopf; indeed, the Fates seemed to be propitious for him. Sophia away, the odium of the proposed change gradually attaching to the Prince—no combination of circumstances could have been luckier. The exact execution of his great stroke must be largely left for the future to decide, but at present things were working out just as he desired. He was studious to keep the Prince unaware, as far as might be, of the growing feeling against him, for fear he might turn craven at the end, and not give him his full opportunity.