The World Set Free

world waits. Don't you think the old game's up, Firmin?'

Firmin adjusted a strap, passed a hand over his wet forehead, and

followed earnestly. 'I admit, sir,' he said to a receding back,

'that there has to be some sort of hegemony, some sort of

Amphictyonic council--'

'There's got to be one simple government for all the world,' said

the king over his shoulder.

'But as for a reckless, unqualified abandonment, sir--'

'BANG!' cried the king.

Firmin made no answer to this interruption. But a faint shadow

of annoyance passed across his heated features.

'Yesterday,' said the king, by way of explanation, 'the Japanese

very nearly got San Francisco.'

'I hadn't heard, sir.'

'The Americans ran the Japanese aeroplane down into the sea and

there the bomb got busted.'

'Under the sea, sir?'

'Yes. Submarine volcano. The steam is in sight of the

Californian coast. It was as near as that. And with things like

this happening, you want me to go up this hill and haggle.

Consider the effect of that upon my imperial cousin-and all the

others!'

'HE will haggle, sir.'

'Not a bit of it,' said the king.

'But, sir.'

'Leblanc won't let him.'

Firmin halted abruptly and gave a vicious pull at the offending

strap. 'Sir, he will listen to his advisers,' he said, in a tone

that in some subtle way seemed to implicate his master with the

trouble of the knapsack.

The king considered him.

'We will go just a little higher,' he said. 'I want to find this

unoccupied village they spoke of, and then we will drink that

beer. It can't be far. We will drink the beer and throw away the

bottles. And then, Firmin, I shall ask you to look at things in a

more generous light… Because, you know, you must…'

He turned about and for some time the only sound they made was

the noise of their boots upon the loose stones of the way and the

irregular breathing of Firmin.

At length, as it seemed to Firmin, or quite soon, as it seemed to

the king, the gradient of the path diminished, the way widened

out, and they found themselves in a very beautiful place indeed.

It was one of those upland clusters of sheds and houses that are

still to be found in the mountains of North Italy, buildings that

were used only in the high summer, and which it was the custom to

leave locked up and deserted through all the winter and spring,

and up to the middle of June. The buildings were of a soft-toned

gray stone, buried in rich green grass, shadowed by chestnut

trees and lit by an extraordinary blaze of yellow broom. Never

had the king seen broom so glorious; he shouted at the light of

it, for it seemed to give out more sunlight even than it

received; he sat down impulsively on a lichenous stone, tugged

out his bread and cheese, and bade Firmin thrust the beer into

the shaded weeds to cool.

'The things people miss, Firmin,' he said, 'who go up into the

air in ships!'

Firmin looked around him with an ungenial eye. 'You see it at

its best, sir,' he said, 'before the peasants come here again and

make it filthy.'

'It would be beautiful anyhow,' said the king.

'Superficially, sir,' said Firmin. 'But it stands for a social

order that is fast vanishing away. Indeed, judging by the grass

between the stones and in the huts, Iam inclined to doubt if it

is in use even now.'

'I suppose,' said the king, 'they would come up immediately the

hay on this flower meadow is cut. It would be those slow,

creamy-coloured beasts, I expect, one sees on the roads below,

and swarthy girls with red handkerchiefs over their black

hair… It is wonderful to think how long that beautiful old

life lasted. In the Roman times and long ages before ever the

rumour of the Romans had come into these parts, men drove their

cattle up into these places as the summer came on… How haunted

is this place! There have been quarrels here, hopes, children

have played here and lived to be old crones and old gaffers, and

died, and so it has gone on for thousands of lives. Lovers,

innumerable lovers, have caressed amidst this golden broom…'

He meditated over a busy mouthful of bread and cheese.

'We ought to have brought a tankard for that beer,' he said.

Firmin produced a folding aluminium cup, and the king was pleased

to drink.

'I wish, sir,' said Firmin suddenly, 'I could induce you at least

to delay your decision--'

'It's no good talking, Firmin,' said the king. 'My mind's as

clear as daylight.'

'Sire,' protested Firmin, with his voice full of bread and cheese

and genuine emotion, 'have you no respect for your kingship?'

The king paused before he answered with unwonted gravity. 'It's

just because I have, Firmin, that I won't be a puppet in this

game of international politics.' He regarded his companion for a

moment and then remarked: 'Kingship!-what do YOU know of

kingship, Firmin?

'Yes,' cried the king to his astonished counsellor. 'For the

first time in my life Iam going to be a king. Iam going to

lead, and lead by my own authority. For a dozen generations my

family has been a set of dummies in the hands of their advisers.

Advisers! Now Iam going to be a real king-and Iam going

to-to abolish, dispose of, finish, the crown to which I have

been a slave. But what a world of paralysing shams this roaring

stuff has ended! The rigid old world is in the melting-pot again,

and I, who seemed to be no more than the stuffing inside a regal

robe, Iam a 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 know that, 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