H. Wells - The World Set Free

robe, I ama king among kings. I have to play my part at the head

of things and put an end to blood and fire and idiot disorder.'

'But, sir,' protested Firmin.

'This man Leblanc is right. The whole world has got to be a

Republic, one and indivisible. You knowthat, and my duty is to

make that easy. A king should lead his people; you want me to

stick on their backs like some Old Man of the Sea. To-day must

be a sacrament of kings. Our trust for mankind is done with and

ended. We must part our robes among them, we must part our

kingship among them, and say to them all, now the king in every

one must rule the world… Have you no sense of the magnificence

of this occasion? You want me, Firmin, you want me to go up

there and haggle like a damned little solicitor for some price,

some compensation, some qualification…'

Firmin shrugged his shoulders and assumed an expression of

despair. Meanwhile, he conveyed, one must eat.

For a time neither spoke, and the king ate and turned over in his

mindthe phrases of the speech he intended to make to the

conference. By virtueof the antiquity of his crown he was to

preside, and he intended to make his presidency memorable.

Reassured of his eloquence, he considered the despondent and

sulky Firmin for a space.

'Firmin,' he said, 'you have idealised kingship.' 'It has been

my dream, sir,' said Firmin sorrowfully, 'to serve.'

'At the levers, Firmin,' said the king.

'You are pleasedto be unjust,' said Firmin, deeply hurt.

'I am pleasedto be getting out of it,' said the king.

'Oh, Firmin,' he went on, 'have you no thoughtfor me? Will you

never realise that I amnot only flesh and blood but an

imagination-with its rights. I ama king in revolt against that

fetter they put upon my head. I ama king awake. My reverend

grandparents never in all their august lives had a wakingmoment.

They loved the job that you, you advisers, gave them; they never

had a doubtof it. It was like giving a doll to a woman who ought

to have a child. They delighted in processions and opening things

and beingread addresses to, and visiting triplets and

nonagenarians and all that sort of thing. Incredibly. They used

to keep albums of cuttings from all the illustrated papers

showing them at it, and if the press-cutting parcels grewthin

they were worried. It was all that ever worried them. But there

is something atavistic in me; I harkback to unconstitutional

monarchs. They christened me too retrogressively, I think. I

wanted to get things done. I was bored. I might have fallen into

vice, most intelligent and energetic princes do, but the palace

precautions were unusually thorough. I was brought up in the

purest court the world has ever seen… Alertly pure… So I

read books, Firmin, and went about asking questions. The thing

was bound to happen to one of us sooner or later. Perhaps, too,

very likely I'mnot vicious. I don't think I am.'

He reflected. 'No,' he said.

Firmin cleared his throat. 'I don't thinkyou are, sir,' he

said. 'You prefer--'

He stopped short. He had been going to say 'talking.' He

substituted 'ideas.'

'That world of royalty!' the king went on. 'In a little while no

one will understandit any more. It will become a riddle…

'Among other things, it was a world of perpetual best clothes.

Everything was in its best clothes for us, and usually wearing

bunting. With a cinema watching to seewe took it properly. If

you are a king, Firmin, and you go and look at a regiment, it

instantly stops whatever it is doing, changes into full uniform

and presents arms. When my august parents went in a train the

coal in the tender used to be whitened. It did, Firmin, and if

coal had been white instead of black I have no doubtthe

authorities would have blackened it. That was the spiritof our

treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to

us. One never sawanything in profile. One got an impression of

a world that was insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began

to poke my little questions into the Lord Chancellor and the

archbishop and all the restof them, about what I should seeif

people turned round, the general effectI produced was that I

wasn't by any means displaying the Royal Tact they had expected

of me…'

He meditatedfor a time.

'And yet, you know, there is something in the kingship, Firmin.

It stiffened up my august little grandfather. It gave my

grandmother a kind of awkward dignity even when she was

cross-and she was very often cross. They both had a profound

sense of responsibility. My poor father's health was wretched

during his brief career; nobody outside the circle knowsjust how

he screwed himselfup to things. "My people expect it," he used

to say of this tiresome duty or that. Most of the things they

made him do were silly-it was part of a bad tradition, but there

was nothing silly in the way he set about them… The spiritof

kingship is a fine thing, Firmin; I feelit in my bones; I do not

knowwhat I might not be if I were not a king. I could die for my

people, Firmin, and you couldn't. No, don't say you could die for

me, because I knowbetter. Don't thinkI forget my kingship,

Firmin, don't imagine that. I ama king, a kingly king, by right

divine. The fact that I amalso a chattering young man makes not

the slightest difference to that. But the proper text-book for

kings, Firmin, is none of the court memoirs and Welt-Politik

books you would have me read; it is old Fraser's Golden Bough.

Have you read that, Firmin?'

Firmin had. 'Those were the authentic kings. In the end they

were cut up and a bit given to everybody. They sprinkled the

nations-with Kingship.'

Firmin turned himselfround and faced his royal master.

'What do you intend to do, sir?' he asked. 'If you will not

listen to me, what do you propose to do this afternoon?'

The king flicked crumbs from his coat.

'Manifestly war has to stop for ever, Firmin. Manifestly this

can only be done by putting all the world under one government.

Our crowns and flags are in the way. Manifestly they must go.'

'Yes, sir,' interrupted Firmin, 'but WHAT government? I don't see

what government you get by a universal abdication!'

'Well,' said the king, with his hands about his knees, 'WE shall

be the government.'

'The conference?' exclaimed Firmin.

'Who else?' asked the king simply.

'It's perfectly simple,' he added to Firmin's tremendous silence.

'But,' cried Firmin, 'you must have sanctions! Will there be no

formof election, for example?'

'Why should there be?' asked the king, with intelligent

curiosity.

'The consent of the governed.'

'Firmin, we are just going to lay down our differences and take

over government. Without any election at all. Without any

sanction. The governed will show their consent by silence. If

any effectiveopposition arises we shall ask it to come in and

help. The truesanction of kingship is the grip upon the sceptre.

We aren't going to worry people to vote for us. I'mcertain the

mass of men does not want to be bothered with such things…

We'll contrive a way for any one interested to join in. That's

quite enough in the way of democracy. Perhaps later-when things

don't matter… We shall govern all right, Firmin. Government

only becomes difficult when the lawyers get hold of it, and since

these troubles began the lawyers are shy. Indeed, come to think