Part 4 (1/2)
”Sir,” murmured De Launay--”We live in strange times----”
”Why, there you speak most truly!” said the King, with emphasis--”We do live in strange times--the very strangest perhaps, since Aeneas Sylvius wrote concerning Christendom. Do you remember the words he set down so long ago?--'It is a body without a head,--a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope or the emperor may s.h.i.+ne as lofty t.i.tles, as splendid images,--but they are unable to command, and no one is willing to obey!' History thus repeats itself, De Launay;--and yet with all its past experience, the Roman Church does not seem to realize that it is powerless against the attacks of intellectual common sense. Faith in G.o.d,--a high, perfect, pure faith in G.o.d, and a simple following of the Divine Teacher of G.o.d's command, Christ;--these things are wise and necessary for all nations; but, to allow human beings to be coerced by superst.i.tion for political motives, under the disguise of religion, is an un-Christian business, and I for one will have no part in it!”
”You will lay yourself open to much serious misconstruction, Sir,” said De Launay.
”Let us hope so, Roger!” rejoined the King with a smile--”For if I am never misunderstood, I shall know myself to be a fool! Come,--do not look so glum!--I want you to help me.”
”To help you, Sir?” exclaimed De Launay eagerly,--”With my life, if you demand it!”
The King rested one hand familiarly on his shoulder.
”I would rather take my own life than yours, De Launay!” he said--”No,--whatever difficulties I get myself into, you shall not suffer! But--as I told you a while ago,--there is something in me that must have its way. I am sick to death of conventionalities,--you must help me to break through them! You are right in saying that we live in strange times;--they are strange times!--and they may perchance be all the better for a strange King!”
CHAPTER IV
SEALED ORDERS
Some hours later on, Sir Roger de Launay, having left his Sovereign's presence, and being off duty for a time, betook himself to certain apartments in the west wing of the palace, where the next most trusted personage to himself in the confidence of the King, had his domicile,--Professor von Glauben, resident physician to the Royal Household. Heinrich von Glauben was a man of somewhat extraordinary character and individuality. In his youth he had made a sudden meteoric fame for his marvellous skill and success in surgery, as also for his equally surprising quickness and correctness in diagnosing obscure diseases and tracing them to their source. But, after creating a vast amount of discussion and opposition among his confreres, and almost reaching that brilliant point of triumph when his originality and cleverness were proved great enough to win him a host of enemies, he all at once threw up the game as it were, and, resigning the favourable opportunities of increasing distinction offered him in his native Germany, accepted the comparatively retired and private position he now occupied. Some said it was a disappointment in love which had caused his abrupt departure from the Fatherland,--others declared it was irritation at the severe manner in which his surgical successes had been handled by the medical critics,--but whatever the cause, it soon became evident that he had turned his back on the country of his birth for ever, and that he was apparently entirely satisfied with the lot he had chosen.
His post was certainly an easy and pleasant one,--the members of the Royal family to which his services were attached were exceptionally healthy, as Royal families go; and he was seldom in more than merely formal attendance, so that he had ample time and opportunity to pursue those deeper forms of physiological study which had excited the wrath and ridicule of his contemporaries, as well as to continue the writing of a book which he intended should make a stir in the world, and which he had ent.i.tled ”The Moral and Political History of Hunger.”
”For,” said he--”Hunger is the primal civilizer,--the very keystone and foundation of all progress. From the plain, prosy, earthy fact that man is a hungry animal, and must eat, has sprung all the civilization of the world! I shall demonstrate this in my book, beginning with the scriptural legend of Adam's greed for an apple. Adam was evidently hungry at the moment Eve tempted him. As soon as he had satisfied his inner man, he thought of his outer,--and his next idea was, naturally, tailoring. From this simple conjunction of suggestions, combined with what 'G.o.d' would have to say to him concerning his food-experiment and fig-leaf ap.r.o.n, man has drawn all his religions, manners, customs and morals. The proposition is self-evident,--but I intend to point it out with somewhat emphasised clearness for the benefit of those persons who are inclined to arrogate to themselves the possession of superior wisdom. Neither brain nor soul has placed man in a position of Supremacy,--merely Hunger and Nakedness!”
The Professor was now about fifty-five, but his exceptionally powerful build and robust const.i.tution gave him the grace in appearance of many years younger, though perhaps the extreme composure of his temperament, and the philosophic manner in which he viewed all circ.u.mstances, whether pleasing or disastrous, may have exercised the greatest influence in keeping his eyes clear and clean, and his countenance free of unhandsome wrinkles. He was more like a soldier than a doctor, and was proud of his resemblance to the earlier portraits of Bismarck. To see him in his own particular 'sanctum' surrounded by weird-looking diagrams of sundry parts of the human frame, mysterious phials and stoppered flasks containing various liquids and crystals, and all the modern appliances for closely examining the fearful yet beautiful secrets of the living organism, was as if one should look upon a rough and burly giant engaged in some delicate manipulation of mosaics. Yet Von Glauben's large hand was gentler than a woman's in its touch and gift of healing,--no surgeon alive could probe a wound more tenderly, or with less pain to the sufferer,--and the skill of that large hand was accompanied by the penetrative quality of the large benevolent brain which guided it,--a brain that could encompa.s.s the whole circle of the world in its observant and affectionate compa.s.sion.
”Ach!--who is there that can be angry with anyone?--impatient with anyone,--offended with anyone!” he was wont to say--”Everybody suffers so much and so undeservedly, that as far as my short life goes I have only time for pity--not condemnation!”
To this individual, as a kind of human calmative and tonic combined, Sir Roger de Launay was in the habit of going whenever he felt his own customary tranquillity at all disturbed. The two were great friends;--friends in their mutual love and service of the King,--friends in their equally mutual but discreetly silent wors.h.i.+p of the Queen,--and friends in their very differences of opinion on men and matters in general. De Launay, being younger, was more hasty of judgment and quick in action; but Von Glauben too had been known to draw his sword with unexpected rapidity on occasion, to the discomfiture of those who deemed him only at home with the scalpel. Just now, however, he was in a particularly non-combative and philosophic mood; he was watching certain animalculae wriggling in a gla.s.s tube, the while he sat in a large easy-chair with slippered feet resting on another chair opposite, puffing clouds of smoke from a big meerschaum,--and he did not stir from his indolent att.i.tude when De Launay entered, but merely looked up and smiled placidly.
”Sit down, Roger!” he said,--then, as De Launay obeyed the invitation, he pushed over a box of cigars, and added--”You look exceedingly tired, my friend! Something has bored you more than usual? Take a lesson from those interesting creatures!” and he pointed with the stem of his pipe to the bottled animalculae--”They are never bored,--never weary of doing mischief! They are just now living under the pleasing delusion that the gla.s.s tube they are in is a man, and that they are eating him up alive.
Little devils! Nothing will exhaust their vitality till they have gorged themselves to death! Just like a great many human beings!”
”I am not in the mood for studying animalculae,” said De Launay irritably, as he lit a cigar.
”No? But why not? They are really quite as interesting as ourselves!”
”Look here, Von Glauben, I want you to be serious--”
”My friend, I am always serious,” declared the Professor--”Even when I laugh, I laugh seriously. My laughter is as real as myself.”
”What would you think,”--pursued De Launay--”of a king who freely expressed his own opinions?”
”I should say he was a brave man,” answered the Professor; ”He would certainly deserve my respect, and he should have it. Even if the laws of etiquette were not existent, I should feel justified in taking off my hat to him.”
”Never from henceforth wear a hat at all then,” said De Launay--”It will save you the trouble of continually doffing it at every glimpse of his Majesty!”
Von Glauben drew his pipe from his mouth and gazed blankly at the ceiling for a few moments in silence. ”His Majesty?” he presently murmured--”Our Majesty?”
”Yes; our Majesty--our King”--replied De Launay--”For some inscrutable reason or other he has suddenly adopted the dangerous policy of speaking his mind. What now?”