Antal Szerb: Oliver VII

“All the same … if something … intervened?”

“No. What could ‘intervene’?”

“I’ve no idea. Some bolt from the blue … an earthquake.”

“But Oliver … ”

“Let’s say, if the archbishop who was going to marry us dropped dead.”

“We’d send for another.”

“True, but as I say: just imagine that something … I don’t know what … did intervene.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“But Ortrud, that sort of thing has occurred before, in our history. Think what happened to Inax the First in 1160.”

“What was that?”

“Inax was a really brave, seafaring king. He wanted to marry Borbála, the daughter of the King of Galazola. But just before the wedding — the day before — the ocean flooded, and a huge sea serpent leapt out of the waves and carried the girl off. Just imagine.”

“And ate her?”

“It didn’t eat her. It took her to an island and kept her prisoner there until they paid a ransom. But at the time there was a major financial crisis in Alturia, and it was many years before they could pay the full sum.”

“But they were married after that, weren’t they?”

“Not at all. The princess had lived with the serpent on the island for many years … and in the Alturian language the word for snake is masculine. So the princess lost her good name. They shut her away in a nunnery.”

Ortrud was plunged deep in thought. The story weighed heavily on her simple soul.

“Perhaps none of it is true,” she ventured at last.

“Perhaps. All the same, it’s what every child in Alturia learns.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What then?”

“Perhaps the princess didn’t have a … relationship … with the serpent. And she never experienced the big change, the one that is so important in the life of a woman.”

“To be sure,” the King said gently. “And if something did happen at this moment — another sea serpent, for example, then you wouldn’t experience that great change … and I would never know just what a dear little woman you are.” He heaved a deep sigh. “I would regret it for the rest of my life.”

He stroked her head tenderly.

Ortrud gazed at him with eyes of love. The story of the sea serpent had thoroughly alarmed her. What would it mean if they really were forced to separate? Tears gathered in her eyes. Suddenly a great idea came to her.

“Tell me, Oliver, do we absolutely have to wait until tomorrow?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well … I think … the great change … ”

“What? You want to be my wife now?”

She nodded her head, shyly.

“In case the sea serpent … ”

“But my sweet … I, er … my aide-de-camp could be here at any moment. And you know what a stickler he is.”

“So we must wait for tomorrow?” she began, deeply saddened. “Oliver, listen to me, let’s not wait. Now, Oliver, now … ”

Oliver was profoundly troubled. Ortrud had urged him with such an adorable, naive charm, temptation stirred within him. Like other men, he wasn’t used to saying no to a woman.

“But Ortrud, what are you thinking?” he stammered. “Such things aren’t possible for a king and a princess. Of course, if I were only the president of a republic, and you were … I don’t know … a shepherdess … ”

“But my dear Oliver, it isn’t only presidents and shepherdesses who … ”

“Ortrud, just imagine, if the sea serpent carried me off and you were left here without a husband. We must be sensible.”

“Yes, precisely, Oliver.”

Agitated, the King moved quickly away to the window and stood staring out. Ortrud followed and snuggled up against him.

“Can’t you see how much more interesting it would be today than tomorrow? We’d cheat the world. But how intriguing! I never realised how difficult it is to seduce a man. It’s exactly the other way round in books. There it’s the men who seduce the women.”

The King felt wounded in his manly pride. To avoid having to answer, he drew the Princess to himself and began to kiss her. But all the time he kept a nervous eye on the clock over the fireplace.

At exactly nine a huge roar was heard down below. The King extracted himself from the embrace.

“Do you hear that?” he asked. “Do you hear it?”

“What?” the Princess replied, in a trance of love.

“They’re here!”

“I can’t hear anything. Who are here?”

The roar grew steadily louder.

“But can you hear it now?”

“Yes. Someone shouting.”

“Someone, you call it? Shouting? Madness! Come here, look out of the window! It isn’t ‘someone’, it’s a mob, and they’re not shouting, they’re screaming. A whole sea of people.”

“Holy God!”

“The entire population of my country is screaming outside the palace, and you say ‘someone’s shouting’. Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Oliver … what do they want?”

“What do they want? How should I know? How would I know that, tell me?”

A mighty bellow made the glass in the windows tremble.

“Come away from the window, Ortrud! It’s the revolution. The sea serpent!”

“Now you see, Oliver.” the Princess said through her tears. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

When Pritanez reached the palace, after that memorable confrontation in the street, he darted into the porter’s lodge, washed himself as well as his agitated state allowed, and dressed again as best he could, with the porter’s help. The porter was a very large man, and his shirt and collar sat rather incongruously on the short, stout Pritanez.

“My, how you’ve changed, Your Excellency,” the porter’s wife solemnly remarked when she saw him.

But Pritanez was not at the moment concerned with the minutiae of personal elegance. He was looking for someone to whom he could pour out the bitterness of his feelings, and demand an inquiry. The first suitable person he came upon was Mawiras-Tendal.

“Major, Major … something unheard-of has happened to me.”

“So I see,” the Major replied, with a smile. “You had to leave the arms of your beloved so hastily that you put the husband’s clothes on by mistake, or something like that … I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

“If you please! Do you think, with my social standing and figure, I make a habit of calling on mistresses? This is an entirely different matter. Major, I have been insulted. You must hold an inquiry, sir. It amounts to an insurrection!”

“What does?”

“Major,” the minister choked, “they threw things at me.”

“You don’t say. This is serious.”

“I think so too.”

“I was referring to the state of your nerves. You must be very distressed.”

“I certainly am!”

“Dreadful! To suffer a nervous breakdown in your hour of triumph! Because, you know, everything’s perfectly quiet and orderly in town.”

“If this is your order and your quiet … ”

“You need a rest. Stay here until you can compose yourself. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“But Major! … ”

The Major had already left the room, shut the door and locked him in. For some time he stared at the door in astonishment, then he began to yell and bang on it. But somehow no one seemed to be around in that part of the palace, and he yelled in vain.

Pritanez had not been the only one to take refuge in the palace from the menacing behaviour of the crowd. The Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior had done so too. From there they tried to make plans, and to contact the local authorities and the Chief of Police — but the telephone returned the engaged signal every time. They dispatched a messenger, who was immediately intercepted by soldiers of the Twelfth Regiment and detained in the building.