Antal Szerb: Oliver VII

“It’s very pretty. Or shouldn’t I have said that?”

The King swallowed briefly.

“Oh, but it is. Wonderfully so.”

This was not what he had expected. He had hoped for something of the old Marcelle, some down-to-earth language of the sort he was so familiar with.

“And yet … ” he began … “don’t you find, this palace … a bit shabby … a twaddlesome sort of place … in comparison to the Louvre, perhaps. Tell me it’s all twaddle,” he almost pleaded.

“I find it aesthetically very pleasing, and at the same time very cosy, Your Highness.”

He took a step closer to her.

“Tell me, Marcelle … or don’t you remember me … your Oscar?” His voice was little more than a whisper. “You don’t remember Oscar, and how no one could have been more useless than he was, how you had to scold him all the time?”

“Of course I remember, Your Highness,” she said, coldly, almost resentfully.

Her aloofness reduced him to even greater despair.

“Then why won’t you talk to me as Oscar? I shall always be Oscar to you. Or are you still angry with the old Oscar, and regret the whole thing? Speak to me, the way you used to.”

“Of course I’m not angry,” she replied, in a strained, hesitant voice. “Of course I’m not angry with you. Oscar will always be my dear old pal.”

She raised her arms towards him, but the gesture was somehow arrested half-way, and she shrunk back into herself.

“No, please don’t ask me for the impossible. Your Highness is King Oliver VII of Alturia, not Oscar. Oh, Oscar was someone else entirely.”

“Why? What was Oscar like?”

“Oscar was the kind of boy who could con twenty-four locomotives out of an American railroad king … ”

“I can tell you now, that story wasn’t true.”

“I know, Your Highness. But Oscar was the sort of boy who said that kind of thing, just to win my heart. He was a dear, dear boy.”

“Please sit, Marcelle,” he said, defeated. Memories flooded back, overwhelming him. His one venture into the real world … “Tell me something about Oscar.”

“I remember,” she said thoughtfully, her eyes fixed somewhere above his head, “we went together once on a boat trip to Torcello. We didn’t have much money so we packed some bread and ham into a bag — good fresh Italian ham and Bel Paese cheese — and we were just like the concierges in Paris going off on a Sunday to shoot at St Cloud. And on the boat they thought we were on our honeymoon. We went to the front of the boat and a wave hit us and we were completely drenched, and Oscar was afraid I’d catch a cold because the wind was up. At Torcello we settled ourselves down on the grass and unpacked our lunch, and in the bar they brought us glass after glass of wine. After dinner Oscar read La Stampa and fell asleep, and I tied a garland of daisies to his hat. And we were just like people on honeymoon, and those Paris concierges. That evening Oscar played his mouth organ in the lovely moonlight, and we sang. That’s when Your Highness was Oscar … truly Oscar … But now … ”

The King rose and paced up and down the room, deep in thought. He remembered that trip to Torcello very well. Then … he had indeed been truly Oscar then … he had been just like anyone else: like a human being …

Suddenly he came to a halt and looked at her.

“You are quite right,” he said sternly, as if to himself. “That Oscar is no more. He’s dead. He no longer exists. So, Oliver VII, King of Alturia, what have you to say to Mlle Marcelle Dubois, from Paris, who asks, and expects, nothing from you?

“Look, Marcelle,” he continued, after a further pause. “You must at least allow me to carry out poor Oscar’s last wishes.”

He took the necklace from the table and held it out to her.

“Oscar sends you this gift. You remember, the poor fellow always promised that if any of his ventures ever succeeded, you would be the first person he thought of. This is poor Oscar’s one gift to you.”

She took the box in her hand, opened it, took the necklace out and began to fiddle with it nervously.

“Thank you very much,” she said softly. “I really do thank you. It’s wonderful. Miraculous. I always said that Oscar was a really good boy.”

Then, with eyes full of sorrow, she added. “And I would have said the same if he hadn’t sent this present to me.”

She smiled, very slightly. The King came a step closer. For a moment he felt that, despite everything, something of the old passion between Oscar and Marcelle was still alive. But, with the most delicate of gestures, she stopped him in his tracks.

“Look, Your Highness, I know I have to be sensible about this. You were never really right as Oscar, and I’d probably be the same if I mixed with royalty.”

For a long while the King stood there, silent and very sad. Then:

“So, Marcelle, and what will you do next, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

She lowered her gaze.

“A good friend of mine has bought himself a car and invited me to go with him to Brittany.”

“That’s excellent. They say Brittany is at its best at this time of year. I envy you, Marcelle. Tell me, would it be very impertinent if I asked who that person is?”

“No, of course not. Your Highness knows him well: Sandoval, the painter.”

For a moment he was gripped by fierce jealousy. Oh, the lucky rascal! He always chooses the pick of everything for himself! When it comes to a profession, he paints; in politics, he’s a conspirator; and now he’s going off to Brittany with Marcelle, on the money I gave him as a reward for his services! But then he remembered the whole moral lesson he had brought back from his brief excursion into real life, and said, with resignation:

“Then go, Marcelle. I would have gone too, but from now on my place is forever in Lara. Have a good time, Marcelle. Goodbye.”

Once again she made a deep curtsey, then went out through the door by which she had entered. A moment later St Germain was back in the room.

“St Germain,” the King mused, “yet again you have taught me something. If I hadn’t seen her now, perhaps for the rest of my life I would have mourned for the trip to Torcello and Oscar’s idyll … But why are you putting on that face?” he asked in sudden alarm.

“Your Highness, it’s a day of goodbyes and farewells. I wish to ask Your Highness’ permission to take leave of you myself.”

“You? Why? Where do you want to go?”

“To Buenos Aires, Your Highness. I’ve had a telegram from my friends there; they’re expecting me. I am needed to sort out a really big business deal.”

“Count, you’re joking!” the King shouted angrily. “Your place is to be forever at my side. As long as I am King here, you will always have good work to do.”

“I know, Your Highness,” St Germain replied, with a deep bow. “I know, and I am profoundly grateful. But that is precisely why I am asking you to allow me to take my leave.”

“I don’t understand,” the King said, exasperated. “Do you think you could find, anywhere else, a better situation than the one you have here?”

“I don’t think that, Your Highness. In fact I am quite certain that some very difficult times lie ahead of me — living on the top floor of some little hotel and dining on the boring menus of restaurants in the student quarter. A hundred thousand dollars is a large sum of money, but it will drift away as mysteriously as it came. And then I’ll start all over again, until I am grown too old and end my worldly career in total poverty.”

“So, then …? Why would you rather not stay on as my chief financial adviser?”

“A settled bourgeois existence would never suit me, Your Highness. I’m a man for serious work. I just cannot see myself administering, writing memoranda, counting money and transacting legitimate business for the rest of my life. My financial talent is for making money from nothing and then looking for another nothing to make more money from. That’s my métier .”