Majesty Part 11

"We should like to," replied Othomar, a little haughtily, "but not unless we have your entire approval. You are the master on your own estate; and, if our visit is unwelcome, we will not force our presence on you."

Zanti looked him in the eyes:

"I repeat, if you like to look round, you can. But there is not much to see. Everything is so simple. We make no secret of what we do. And the estate is not mine: it belongs to all of them."

Othomar dismounted, the others followed; with difficulty Leoni and Thesbia found a couple of boys to hold the horses in return for a tip.

Othomar and Herman had already walked ahead with the old man:

"I hear that you are doing much good work to mitigate the disaster of the inundations," said Othomar.

"The inundation is not a disaster."

"Not a disaster!" asked Herman, surprised. "What then?"

"A just punishment of heaven. And there will be more punishments. We live in sinful times."

The princes exchanged a quick glance; they saw that the conversation would not go very easily.

"But the sinners whom heaven punishes you a.s.sist for all that, Mr.

Zanti," said Herman. "For all these huts...."

"Are not huts. They are sheds, workshops or temporary dwellings. They will grow into a settlement, if such be G.o.d's will ... to enable men to live simply, by their work. Life is so simple, but man has made it so strange and complicated."

"But you take in the peasants who have lost their all through the inundations?" Herman persisted.

"I don't take them. When they feel their sins, they come to me and I save them from destruction."

"And do they not come to you also without feeling their sins, because they feel that they will get food and lodging for nothing?"

"They get no food and lodging for nothing: they have to work here, sir!"

said the old man. "And perhaps more than you, who walk about in a uniform.... They are paid, according to the amount of work they do, out of the common fund. They are building here and I build with them. Do you see this tree here and this axe? I was employed in felling down this tree when you came and interrupted me."

"A capital exercise," said Herman. "You look a vigorous man."

"So you say you are forming a settlement here?" asked Othomar.

"Yes, sir. The cities are corrupt; life in the country is purifying.

Here they live; farther on lies arable land, which I give them, and pasture-land; I shall buy cattle for them."

"So you are simply trying to recruit farmers here?" asked Herman.

"No, sir!" answered the grey-beard gruffly. "I recruit no farmers; they are not my farmers. They are their own farmers. They work for themselves and I am a simple farmer like them. We are all equal...."

"You are a simple farmer," Prince Herman echoed, "yet you live in a castle."

"No, young man," replied Zanti, "I do not live in a castle; I live _here_; my daughter lives there by herself. She is ill.... She would not be able to stand an alteration in her mode of life, or any deprivation.

But she will not live long...."

He glanced up, looked at the Princes alternately, askance, almost anxiously:

"She is my only weakness, I think," he said, in a faint, deprecating voice. "She is my sin; I have called in doctors for her and believe in what they say and prescribe. You see, she would not be able to do it ...

to follow me in all things, for she has too much of the past in her poor blood. For her, a castle and comfort are necessities, vital necessities.

Therefore I leave her there.... But she will not live long.... And then I shall sell it and divide the money, every penny of it, among them all.... You see, that is my weakness, my sin; I am only human...."

The princes saw him display emotion; his hands trembled. Then he seemed to feel that he had already spoken to them too much and too long of what lay nearest to his heart, his sin. And he pointed to the buildings, explained their uses....

"I have read some of your pamphlets, Mr. Zanti," said the crown-prince.

"Do you apply your ideas on matrimony here?"

"I apply nothing," the grey-beard growled, resuming his tone of contradiction. "I leave them free to do as they please. If they wish to get married according to your law, they can; but, if they come to me, I bless them and let them go in peace, for it is written, 'Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my father who is in heaven. For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.'"

"And how do you rule so many followers?" asked Herman.

"I don't rule them, sir!" roared the old man, clenching his fists, his face red with fury. "I am no more than any of them. The father has authority in his own household and the old men give advice, because they have experience: that is all. Life is so simple...."

"As you picture it, but not in reality," objected Herman.

Zanti looked at him angrily, stopped still, to be able to talk with greater ease, and, pa.s.sionately, violently, exclaimed:

"And do you in reality find it better than I picture it? I do not, sir, and I hope to turn my picture into reality. You and yours once, ages ago, made your picture reality; now it is the turn of us others: your reality has lasted long enough...."

Othomar, haughtily, tried to say something in opposition; the old man, however, suddenly turned to him and, gently though roughly, said, his penetrating, fanatical voice which made Othomar shudder:

"For you, sir, I feel pity! I do not hate you, although you may think I do. I hate n.o.body. The older I have grown, the less I have learned to hate, the more softness has entered into me. See here: I hear something in your voice and see something in your eyes that ... that attracts me, sir. I tell you this straight out. It is very foolish of me, perhaps, to talk like this to my future emperor. But it is so: something in you attracts me. And I feel pity for you. Do you know why? Because the time will come!"

He suddenly pointed upwards, with a strange impressiveness, and continued:

"The hour will come. Perhaps it is very near. If it does not come in your father's reign, it will come in your reign or your son's. But come it will! And therefore I feel pity for you. For you will not have enough love for your people. Not enough love to say to them, 'I am as all of you and nothing more. I will possess no more than any of you, for I do not want abundance while you suffer need. I will not rule over you, for I am only a human being like yourselves and no more human than you.' Are you more human? If you were more, then you would be ent.i.tled to rule, yes, then, then ... See here, young man: you will never have so much love for your people as to do all this, oh, and more still and more! You will govern and possess abundance and wage war. But the time will come!

Therefore I have pity for you ... although I oughtn't to!"

Othomar had turned pale; even Herman gave a little shudder. It was more because of the oracular voice of the man who was prophesying the doom of their sovereignty than because of his words. But Herman shook off his shudder and, angrily, haughtily:

"I cannot say that you are polite to your _guests_, Mr. Zanti," he said.

"I do not speak of his imperial highness...."

Zanti looked at Othomar:

"Forgive me," he said. "I spoke like that for your sake. Your eyes are like my daughter's. That's why I spoke as I did."

Herman burst out laughing:

"A valid reason, no doubt, Mr. Zanti."

Othomar, however, signed to him to cease his tone of persiflage and also with a glance restrained his equerries, who had listened to Zanti's oracular utterances in speechless indignation: the old man had addressed Othomar almost in a whisper. His last words, however, which resounded with emotion, changed this indignation into bewilderment, calmed their anger, made them regard the prophet as half a madman, whose treason the crown-prince was graciously pleased to excuse. And the officers looked at one another, raised their eyebrows, shrugged their shoulders. Dutri grinned. Othomar asked Zanti coolly whether they had not better proceed.

The settlement was very much in its first stage; yet a few farm-houses were beginning to rise up, chestnut-trees lay felled, hundreds of peasants were busily working.

The group of officers excited great curiosity; the princes had been recognized. On almost every side the people stopped work, followed the uniforms with their eyes.