Slowly the line of recipients moved forward. Doubtless there were no longer any lepers among them. Even the standards of raggedness had improved. There were a few more old women than old men, sh ufflin g forward to accept the mug of milk and the chunk of bread from the ‘one friar, one sister, and one knight” traditionally charged with the duty. The “knight” was usually a very junior member of The Household—Eszterhazy did not know him. Eszterhazy drew near. The two policemen on duty looked at him indifferendy, yawned. Eszterhazy examined the recipients one by one. Why? Absurd! What did it matter? Ahah, a Tartar—few to be seen nowadays. . . . This next one still in fragments of the old-style costume of the sailing-bargees. . . . This one a Goth. . . . The next . . .
So. Yes. In shapeless coat, rags wrapped about shuffling feet, cap tom in two places, bread in one hand and milk in the other, with dim purpose heading for the worn old steps at the side to sit and eat and drink: if this was not Himself the King-Emperor, it was no one else. Only a sudden flash of memory of the fatal identification of Louis and Marie Antoinette by the innocent priest at Varennes—some dim caution flaring up—prevented Eszterhazy from bowing, from kneeling. But he was sufficiently taller than the sunken, shrunken figure to justify bending, and he made of this merely physical motion an act of homage; he inclined his head as he said, softly, “Sire.”
The old eyes, rheumy and filmed, looked at him. The old head nodded, twice. The old hands started to dip the bread in the milk, paused. The old man slowly crossed himself. Once again the bread went towards the mug; once again it stopped.
“Long, long ago,” he said, in his high, now somewhat tremulous voice, “a delegation of the Jewish notables came to see me, to thank me for something or other. And I—may God forgive me, I was young then —there was a rabbi among them, and I said to him jovial, I said, ‘And is your Messiah here?’ God forgive me, God forgive me. . . . And he looked at me, this old man who had looked as it were on Pharaoh, and this is what he said, ‘Do not seek him here. Seek him among the sickly beggars at the City Gate.’ ” Again the bread went towards the milk, this time it went in, came up dripping, and with dexterous haste he caught the sop and took it in his mouth before, sodden, it could fall.
Eszterhazy said nothing. The old man munched and sucked and swallowed. It did not take him long to be done with the refreshment. Then he said, “God has given this weary old body such length of days so that this Empire and its many nations might have some few more years of peace, you see. What did the old France say? He said, ‘After him the deluge. . . . And the Deluge swept away his House.’ But, now, after me, after me . . . what? Tell me, learned fellow, what was the name of that old empire which in olden days sank beneath the sea?”
“Sire: Atlantis,”
“Yes, so. After me, this Empire will sink like Atlantis, and the children of these children,” he gestured to a few boys and girls playing near off, “will look for it upon the maps in vain.” He was long silent Then, in a whisper of a whisper, “Sed Dea spes mea .”
When Eszterhazy raised his head, the place beside him was empty.
Up and down and back and forth through the andentmost quarters of the City, Eszterhazy sought his Sovereign: what his Sovereign was seeking, he did not know.
A voice close by said, <r Watch!” He looked up, started, stopped. There had been no great danger; indeed, the caution may have been less to prevent his walking into the horse and hearse than to adjure him to take off his hat Which he now did. There was but one horse; there were no carriages of mourners to mark the sad bobbing of the jet-black ostrich plumes. Alongside and behind this modem version of the death- cart walked a half dozen figures in the robes and the hoods of the Penitential Brotherhood who had once been charged with burying the victims of the Plague and were still charged with conducting the funerals of paupers. If equality existed anywhere in the many nations of the Triune Monarchy, it existed in the ranks of the Penitential Brotherhood. The knight of many quarterings might be found therein, and therein, too, the convict on ticket-of-leave. He did not know the one who called out, as the hearse rattled and creaked over the stone-blocks and the tram tracks, “Thou too , thou tool ” nor did he know the one who echoed this call with another, “Pray for him and pray for us. . . ” He recognized none of the faces beneath the hoods of those who bore lighted candles, till one of them casually half-glanced in his direction: and so again he saw the bloodless, weary countenance of his Emperor.
The day wore to its close; he found his way to his home. A while he spent in thought; then he thought to send a message; then he got up and went to his telephone. The number he announced was one of two digits and below fifty: the call went through immediately.
‘The Equerries’ Room,” a voice said. What emotions could he imagine in the voice? Best to imagine none.
“Pray ask Count Kristofr Eszterhazy if he will speak with his cousin, Doctor Engelbert”
Almost at once the familiar voice, “Yes, Engli, what? . . .”
“Kristi, forgive the presumption, but . . . but, how is it with The Presence?”
A short silence, heavy breathing. Then; “Engli, you frighten me— how could you have known?”
He felt his heart swell. “What? What?” he mumbled.
‘‘We thought he had fainted, he was unconscious for most of the day, he seemed to be saying something from time to time, it made no sense, ever; things like, oh, TIow heavy is the dirt,' maybe—or, ‘Quick, quick, the dust,’ or, The dole/ and ‘Is he here?’ But he was mostly silent— all day long 1 . We feared the worst, no one but the doctors were allowed in, and of course no one was allowed out But about an hour ago he suddenly regained consciousness. The doctors say that he is as well now as he was yesterday. So we must say: Thank God.”
The call was soon ended.
—What had happened? Was it possible? Had he, Engelbert Esz- terhazy, suffered and shared in suffering an hallucination of the most fantastic kind conceivable? Dreamed, constructed an entire phantasm out of the depths of his own mind—a phantasm which . . . somehow, somehow ... in some way seemed to fit in with the phantasm of this other and so much older man, lying motionless on his hard bed halfway across the City? Incredible as this was, still, it was the likeliest explanation. The likeliest—which may not have been the best and truest . . .
... or had some . . . some aspect of the aged Monarch left its fleshly mansion, and, as the Kaffirs of Africa said, gone wandering about whilst the body slept ... or ... or what?
Long, long he pondered the matter, pacing back and forth in his study, back and forth.
At length, longing for fresher air, he went up to the roof of his house. It stood on no great hill, but stand upon a hill it did: all, all about him, on every side, the Imperial capital lay spread out to his view, gas and electric lamps in streets and houses; and with naphtha and acetylene flares as well, where the markets were: necklaces and pendants and clusters, a coffer full of jewels spread out before him. And above, every tower and crenelation and door and gate of the Casde on the bluffs above the glittering, reflective Ister was illuminated.
He heard, over and over again, in his mind, as though even now spoken next his ear, the words which either the aged Sovereign or else his very simulacrum or doppelganger had said. “After me, this Empire will sink like Atlantis, and the children of these children will look for it upon the maps in vain . ...”