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.
2
There was no more talk of a revision of the constitution and reform of the hereditary house of peers. The constitutional majority of three-fourths which is required in the house of deputies before such a proposal can be taken into consideration, though there at first, no longer existed after the new elections. Oscar, immediately after his return from Altara, had shown them his daring strength. Lipara was surrounded with troops: this was as well, for the manoeuvres, for the King of Syria, who was expected. The forts were strengthened, the fleet lay in the harbour; then came the imperial decree that the house of deputies should simply ... be dissolved. What an outcry, after the promulgation of that decree, in the newspapers and in the streets! For one moment, at night, there was an abortive riot. But the emperor, furious with the Marquis of Dazzara for his delay in taking prompt and energetic measures, had next day affirmed his august dissatisfaction. The marquis was shown that there were moments when the emperor was not to be trifled with; the emperor dismissed him personally, on the spot, and told him he could go. Crushed, his eyes full of despair, the marquis left the Imperial; in the fore-court his carriage crossed that of the Duke of Mena-Doni, lieutenant-general of the hussars; he saw the duke's sensual, Neronic head, covetous with ambition, staring up at the front of the palace. The marquis threw himself back in his carriage, wringing his hands and weeping like a child....
That same morning martial law was proclaimed at Lipara and the Duke of Mena-Doni appointed governor of the capital. With a great military display and a speech of three words the emperor dissolved the house of deputies. The people trembled, beaten off, thrashed, reduced to crouching at the imperial feet. The decree was issued for the general election. Must the people be chastised to make them attached to their emperor? Was it because of the innumerable articles in the newspapers of the northern provinces—Altara, Vaza and Lycilia—which bestowed all their sympathy upon their most charming, charitable crown-prince, indefatigable, omnipresent, mitigating what suffering he could? Was it because of the colossal, fabulous presents of millions contributed from the imperial privy purse to the fund for the victims of the disaster? The result of the elections became known: the new house of deputies contained a bare, impotent majority of constitutionals. What did it profit that the liberal papers shrieked of intrigue and undue pressure? Without and within the city lay the army; each day the emperor showed himself, with by his side the Duke of Mena-Doni....
The emperor invited the old ministry to remain in office, but dismissed those of the ministers who were not absolutely authoritative.
The crisis was at an end. The great spring manoeuvres were to take place on the parade-ground so soon as the King and Queen of Syria arrived at Lipara.
In Othomar there sprang up a vast admiration for his father. He did not love him with the fondness, the intimacy, the still almost childish dependence with which he loved the empress; he had always looked up to him; as a child he had been afraid of him. Now, after the personal courage which he had seen the emperor display, the sovereign power which he had watched him exercise, his majesty rose higher before Othomar's eyes, as it were the statue of a demi-god. He felt himself a lowly mortal beside him, when he thought: