Record of the Reception of the New, 20th Republican Year in the Heart of Monarchist Sigisland, composed by Anton Zerlich (fragment)
When the bows of the quartet, after a whole catalogue of monarchist airs culled from the six continents, struck out the opening, vigorous notes in C major of the Guntrelandish revolutionary ode “Gelbs Lives and Keeps Watch for the People”—when those sounds overflowed the Engelbertite oak furnishings, upholstered in a white plush already disgraced by stains of wine, past the portraits of two Ferdinands and of Afsen framed upon the wall, past the gaudy costumes of that eminently monarchist society gathered in the salon of Mr. Martin Wagner, émigré of Guntreland and man without estate, illegitimate son of Count Herenburg—when, through the open window, they poured out upon the air of the erzroyalist Candle Quay in Kelenburg, where the free-spirited laws of Her Majesty granted them impunity of existence—for the thousandth time I could not prevent that thrill which ran like fire through my whole being: I imagined myself upon an uplifted barricade, with Citizen Henscher on one side and Citizen Shmek on the other, and with them an unnumbered host of citizens, defending those principles which, despite all my efforts to persuade myself otherwise, a part of my soul still believed (nay, still knew?) to be the only principles capable of securing the durable welfare of the whole Planet, rather than the strong, but passing, and perhaps all too base, satisfactions of self.
The sobs of Sigismund von Austenberg, Archroyal Baron, none less than commander of the entire Archqueen’s aerial fleet, and therefore the first among those present by precedence, reclined in the armchair nearest the musicians, and his occasional exclamations of “Horrible!”—these were so constant an accompaniment to the Guntrelandish revolutionary songs that I had almost unconsciously begun to take them as part of the score. Indeed, I am persuaded my republican colleague would found singular sublimity in a musical edition of his ode which would, beneath the lines of notation for the instruments and singers, contain also a stave marked Lamentations of Foreign Interventionist Aristocrats. For, needless to say, Sigismund did not weep for Citizen Johann Gelbs, martyr of the Republic, broken upon the wheel by the royalists; he had quite other reasons for such eruptions of grief at the sounds resounding through Wagner’s salon.
“This very song was heard,” said he in his tear-choked voice—which in its ghastly, some would say demonic, accord matched with his martial and carefully composed figure—“when the republican bayonet pierced the heart of my Neinhart, my brother in arms, loyal soldier of the King. O my good Neinhart, second son of Count Keglberg, faithful servant of King Alfons, worthy great-grandson of an ancient comital line—thus one dies for his King, thus one falls for our sacred Idea…”
Our host, Mr. Wagner, raised his glass in memory of “good” Neinhart von Keglberg. For a moment, I longed to accompany this raising of glasses with the cry, “Citizen Gelbs—on the Roll of Honor!” Yet I was checked, not by fear of Austenberg (which I did not feel at all), nor of the purplecoats, for the Archqueen guaranteed liberty of speech—but rather by that ever-returning knowledge: that only the triumph of global monarchism secures the place of our land and our sovereign above all others, and that if this means drinking to the memory of an assuredly arrogant and dissipated Neinhart, against the just and honest Gelbs—so much the more worthy of lament—then so it must be…
"For the ancient and exalted line of Keglberg — long live the King!" cried the guest who entered Wagner’s salon for the first time, brought thither by Sigismund himself — the Vicomte von Ester-Klausen, newly appointed National Gentleman of the Guntrelandish King at our court. "May the line of Keglberg never perish. The old Count and Countess are cherished friends of my parents’ household, and Neinhart’s elder brother is my dear companion in the hunt, at the cards, and upon the ballroom floor. Their loss has but revealed the nobility of these gracious souls: Neinhart’s portion of the inheritance they have divided amongst the poor of Schwentzstadt, loyal to the King."
Ester-Klausen comported himself with a certain haughtiness, drawing his confidence from the weight of his family’s gold, dignities, and connexions; and from the very moment of his arrival he sought the primacy in conversation with our host — who, however, by his pertinacity in reciting words and pressing questions, maintains his sovereignty over all discourse. Nor did the Vicomte restrain himself in the exhibition of philosophical terms, in which he paraded with equal ostentation.
"‘Gelbs lives, and keeps watch for the people,’" repeated with visible disdain Doctor Zobl, a grey-haired economist who frequents Wagner’s salon in the intervals betwixt his numerous journeys over land and sea, where he hath stroked the tiger and beheld divers other marvels. "Monsters now mock us even in the very titles of songs which they thrust into the mouths of Guntrelandish rabble. Yes, assuredly he lives and never sleeps; for the vampires have not failed to reward that miscreant for his service to their wickedness, by smuggling one of their brood into his prison whilst he awaited execution, who did bite him and thus enable him, after death, to rise again as revenant."
I felt assured that in these Zoblean extravagancies none of the company placed belief; yet I ever delight to observe the manner in which some new visitor shall respond to the follies of our circle, already grown commonplace to the habitués. For this cause I fixed mine eyes upon Ester-Klausen, eager to behold his reaction to the fantasies of Zobl.
"Long live the vampiric Gelbs! A happy Henscherian New Year to us all!" cried Ester-Klausen thereupon, plainly mocking both Zobl — who indeed deserved such mockery — and the morrow’s date, coinciding with the First of Vulpioz, Year the Twentieth of the Republican Calendar. "May the battered casque of iron serve as chalice for the draught of blood! And whoso drinks no wine in the eve of the First of Vulpioz shall be condemned to hearken soberly to the proclamation of Citizen Henscher!" With a flourish of his hand, the Vicomte summoned Wagner’s lackey, who brought forth a chest of wine, of manifest quality, bearing upon its crest the two initials of the Vicomte’s surname.
When the servant had poured for each guest a glass — each of a different colour, though all of Vorena glassware, alas chipped or otherwise marred at the rim — and whilst the quartet struck up a new tune, more obscure, childishly naïve, yet Republican in spirit: “Forth comes the angry fox, to read us the Constitution” — Wagner in his turn waved his hand, and into the room stepped his steward, who halted stiffly in the midst, a scroll of paper in his hand.
"For Master Zerlich, here, our exalted maestro," spake our host, indicating myself, "they say he is a Henscherite, though he protests to be but a reformer and rationalist, as though that were any better. In his honour, and that we may know against what we contend, read, Gerhard, the text which the Henscherites recite in their schools upon their New Year, and which our noble Vicomte hath been so good as to procure for us."
Yet ere Gerhard might unfold the scroll and commence his reading, Sigismund bent himself forward, and to the astonishment of all present began to raise his breeches, laying bare the skin of his shins. “’Twas this song, sirs, that the republicans sang,” quoth he, “when into our trench they cast the grenade which slew twelve of the King’s brave knights, and left upon me for the span of my life this wound, the proudest mark of a loyal monarchist!”
“Glory yourself, dear friend, in that noble sacrifice for our Guntrelandish monarchy, for therein shineth your magnanimity,” replied Ester-Klausen, who, after but the briefest and most perfunctory glance upon Sigismund’s scar, spoke in a tone that swiftly turned from scornful mockery of Henscherism to a pathos mirroring the very spirit of our baron. “Behold what dreadful times are these, when the exalted members of our royal house, their Highnesses Princes Clarens and Rupert, lineal descendants of Philip-Fridhold, are by republican gaolers rudely pulled by ears and noses, whilst the vile sheet, ‘The Flag of the Republic,’ trumpeteth forth its joy to the rabble it serveth, blind to the grief that so ancient and illustrious a dynasty should be brought unto such contumely. Yea, never in these last ten thousand years hath our plight been more grievous...”
Stirred perchance by this passion, and by the conceit that worse days had not been seen since men’s forebears swung like apes upon the boughs, he drew from his pocket a purse, loosed its string, and began to fling gold pieces in profusion—though all in discord with the music that sounded—into a gilded coffer, graven with the arms of Herenburg, which stood, not without design, beside his chair and bore the inscription: “Contributions for the Royal and Congress Army.” Full well did I know that Martin Wagner’s salon, to which he had come in Sigisland a beggar and soon plunged in debts, owed much of its splendour to the treasure gathered in that chest; and when caught, as he oft was, pilfering from it in his cups or in his idleness, Wagner would excuse himself with the plea that his salon, as the gathering-place of the most erudite monarchists, was as necessary to the cause as any regiment of the Royal and Congress Army.
On his part, rejoiced by these munificent offerings, and scarce able to endure longer the doleful meditation upon the “dreadful” fate of those two young Afsens (though in truth they merit a harsher destiny which most surely awaiteth them), Sigismund rose, and commanded the quartet to cease their republican air. Yet the silence was forestalled by his own voice, for he at once began declaiming a poem of his own composition, which, as he declared, had sprung from the horror of his heart at the state of the world:
As I walked along, the light fell round about me,
And I perceived the manifold monsters that be;
They devour each other without purpose or end,
Loving only matter, and the abundance that consumeth;
This wild herd is blind, and liveth as the swine…
At that instant befell a scene which to the Guntrelandish viscount must needs have seemed the ultimate proof that even our continent slid upon the same “perilous” path as his own country. For lo, there approached the Baron a gross, heavy-headed figure, that of Alexander Weiss, a self-taught linguist of “humble” birth from the southern province of Tenelon, who, with rustic familiarity, smote Austenberg upon the shoulder as though he were no baron of the Archqueen nor commander of the aerial fleet, but some mere coachman.
“Pork ribs, ha-ha!” cried Weiss, already flushed with drink, and burst into a roguish laugh. This man, so eager to be admitted into Kelenburg’s society, carried himself therein as though still within the alehouse of his native village.
“Poetry, Weiss, my friend, is a sacred thing in our Sigisland archmonarchy, which is itself the summit of culture. You must learn to hold it dearer, if you would aspire to Ferdinand’s Academy,” quoth Sigismund, plainly alluding to Weiss’s nine successive years, or three cycles, of failed candidacy for that august institution, the longest in its annals. And I pondered whether by this he meant also to suggest that his gold might incline the votes of the academicians at the next election.
“Wild herd, you say, Baron,” broke in Doctor Zobl once more, “Aye, werewolves are game indeed. Ferdinand’s Encyclopedia recordeth that they may command at will the beatings of their hearts, a faculty evolved, so our learned men tell us, that they might still themselves whilst stalking the stag and other beasts of quick hearing. Yet I declare unto you, by that same diabolical will, they may choose the hour of their transformation into veritable wolves, the better to work their mischief upon mankind.”
Then spake a figure long silent, whose words, in my observation, bred discomfort even among the most extreme reactionaries, save only his patron Sigismund. This was Doctor Zacharias Steiner, who yet dared in our land to style himself a “vampirologist.” “Werewolves may be game; we have them not, and let them stay afar. But the evil of the vampire is unmatched in this world accursed by their existence,” said he, with that icy voice that no frenzy of hate could warm. “Ferdinand, our Restorer, showed grievous weakness, mortal peril to the whole race of man, in that he merely stripped them of gold, estate and title, and drove them into exile. The sole cure were this: that every one of them be slain, staked and burned, sparing not even—why should one?—their whelps.” And I marked with no small satisfaction that upon Ester-Klausen’s visage there lay a shadow of horror at Steiner’s words.
“Mister Wagner,” spake the Viscount then, “are you not yourself a native of Estana, the city where our princes now endure their martyrdom?” Though it was plain he knew the answer, perchance he sought but to divert the discourse from the doctor’s dreadful assertions. Meanwhile Gerhard still stood transfixed, scroll in hand, awaiting his turn, while the quartet, instead of the republican verses, struck up the Archking’s Quadrille, so that once more the superior genius of our nation’s music appeased the disquiet of my heart.
“Estana is indeed the city of my birth,” Wagner replied with pride. “Our princes shall endure every indignity, until they behold the triumphant return of our army; and then shall I presume so far as to hope they will honour me with their presence at a banquet which I shall hold in my house for them.”
“Estana must fare as Glahald,” declared Sigismund sternly, little heeding how such words might sound to our host. “’Tis the only just doom for a city that suffereth our princes to be held in chains at its heart.”
“Baron Sigismund was gracious enough to show me Glahald upon my arrival,” said Ester-Klausen. “Verily, a city of phantoms. As I sojourned therein I almost expected the Cursed Balloon to appear in the sky above.” Zobl, methought, shuddered at that mention. (Let the reader who is not of our land know, this is the one quarter of Kelenburg left unreclaimed and uninhabited, doomed to eternal desolation for that in ancient times an attempt was there made against the life of Eugene, our second Archking[1]. It is the very Quay of Candles, upon which Wagner’s salon is set, that joineth Glahald to the Square of the Archkingdom, whence a bridge leadeth into the heart of our Fatherland.)
“The King shall judge as he will, yet when he sitteth in judgment upon Estana he will not forget that she hath given us a Martin Wagner,” quoth Zobl. “And this Estana none shall take from us; for our friend Wagner nameth this very Kelenburg salon of his ‘Estana,’ as though no splendours of our glorious land could supplant in his heart the city of his nativity.”
“Who is now, upon the mainland of Guntreland, the worthiest royalist,” cried Sigismund with solemn voice, “if he be not upon the peninsula of Schwentz, he is surely in Estana, in the infamous House of Honesty, with his princes, where the rebels keep all charged with royalism until they fling them to the jackals or deliver them to blood-stained monsters. Who is in Sigisland the worthiest royalist, and hath read at least two books in his life, cometh to Wagner’s salon. Therefore, with pride, this salon is called Estana, and deserveth that name and none other.”
“Or might it not rather be,” I could not refrain from adding, “that this salon is named Estana, because in Estana there standeth the Animal Garden of the Republic, which even in the whole works of Hurel hath not such a gallery of beasts as is found among Wagner’s guests?” All laughed. “Come then, shall we, like good Hurelian beasts when their anthem is played, rise and listen to the New-Year proclamation?” said I, eager to observe the effect which the severe and inexorable account of republican triumph would make upon these men, whom I deemed, in part at least, unworthy of the principled pen of the republican scribe.
[1] This refers to the failed assassination attempt against the person of the Archking Eugene committed on the May 16 year 21 of the Congress Era by the conspirators - southern supporters of the suppressed Antieugenite rebellion in cooperation with several northern aristocratical families who were opposed to further centralization of the country - by blocking the path of the Archking's carriage while the Archking was passing the Quay of Candles and shooting at them from the windows of apartments on the Quay that they had previously rented with that intention.
