The King of Alsander Part 18

"What of him? One of the guards knows of a little tap invented by the j.a.panese, as simple as the Jiu-jitsu trick with which I felled you in the shop the other day. The King really is the last person to be considered."

"But, really, if you want me to have anything to do with it," cried Norman, in horror, "I cannot touch murder."

"Not murder, but removal. What use is the poor devil's life to him or to the world?" So saying, Arnolfo sat down in the armchair facing his interlocutor and eyed him with interest.

"I am not an Alsandrian. In England we view these things differently,"

said Norman, pompously, shocked that his gentle companion should be capable of designing such an atrocious outrage. But Arnolfo answered unperturbed:

"In England I believe on one occasion you gave a King a mock trial and then beheaded him under circ.u.mstances of inconceivable barbarity. Ah!

you're an Englishman, and mad like all of them, as mad as Andrea. Come, I love argument; let's have it out. One life, one rotten, miserable life to buy the happiness of a country, and you won't spend it. You call it principle. When you go to war, what do you care for life? You are not religious in the matter. It's just that fetish you call law. I did not ask you to kill the imbecile yourself; it will be done quietly."

"I will have nothing to do with any filthy, cold-blooded murder. It isn't fetish: it's simply because I won't."

"And if we deal with you instead of with him?"

"Try. I do not like your cynicism."

"I am sorry. But it is unreason on your part, or else sheer cowardice.

By what code of ethics in the world do you justify yourself? You are just frightened to do something that would make your conscience uncomfortable. On what do you base your morality?"

"On feeling."

"Would your feelings let you kill a man who was just going to kill some one else?"

"Certainly."

"Then why not a man whose existence does harm to others?"

"Others might think my existence did harm to them."

"But a life that is worthless to itself?"

"May not the poor fool's life be happier than yours or mine?" said Norman, who was always fond of abstract argument and apt to grow eloquent in the realm of ideas. "He lives with his ideal. His cobwebbed, cracked-plaster room is for him a most elegant palace; he sees the phantom courtiers all day long; they bring him presents of fruits and flowers and spices and gold. He is for himself the great Emperor of the World, for all we know."

"Then you will not justify a political a.s.sa.s.sination?"

"No. It's not so easy as you think, nor are my reasons so trumpery, Arnolfo--for you're as shallow as you are clever. Murder cuts at the source of all society--which war, which is organized killing, does not.

Unorganized killing means death not to one man here or there but to society. That is why we English, who think society a good thing, hate murder. Let it loose, unpunished, and if but twenty people are killed the law unheeding, it's worse for society than if twenty thousand perish in war or plague. I will not touch it."

"Your reasoning is powerful, Norman, but it's not your reason that influences your action. Your act is, as you said before, in accordance with your feelings. I might combat your reason, but I cannot change your convictions. What can we do?"

"Well, it's not so terribly urgent to get rid of him."

"What can possibly be done with him?"

"Why, send him to a lunatic asylum, of course."

"What a ghastly piece of perverted common sense. O, you Englishmen; you have never realized that the French Revolution has occurred. You are still a hundred years behind the Continent. But I am Alsandrian, my friend, I am Southern; I have all the Southern weakness."

"And some of the Southern charm," added Norman. Though he had recovered under the stress of the ethical argument from the hypnotic fascination to which he had succ.u.mbed, he began to be not so sure that he did not like this strange and gracious person.

"But none of the Southern faithlessness," Arnolfo rejoined. "Trust me, Norman. Trust me and I will be faithful to you to death. I--we all of us need you so desperately. This about the murder was only nonsense--to hear what you had to say, though I'm afraid the good Sforelli suggested it in earnest. There is good work, man's work, an Englishman's work to be done here. Once the fantastic stuff--the mummery--is over, you may achieve true greatness."

"I shall become a thief," said Norman. "Do you want to argue that?"

"You are right to remember it. That repugnance you must sacrifice: you are going to seize an all but worthless property and make it fine land for corn and olive."

"Yet what I said of murder applies to theft: I am helping to cut at the basis of society."

"But to found a new one. Come, in this objection you will not persist.

You have not the same emotion, you do not really mind."

"Or, rather, you wake in me such emotions--such schoolboy emotions--that I cannot control them. It's a game--but it's worth playing. I don't care what awaits me--discovery-disaster--death! I don't care if you're fooling me. I follow you, Arnolfo. What are your orders?"

"Continue to play the part the Poet a.s.signed to you, that is all. Hint of the mystery. I will prepare the rest as quickly as I can. About the King, I will arrange something to please you. And now, good-bye."

Norman held out his hand, but Arnolfo, under the stress of subdued emotion, laid his hands on Norman's shoulders and kissed him.

"A Southern way," he said, half laughing, half ashamed. "One more thing, remember, I had almost forgotten," he added, as he opened the door for Norman. "That is, beware of women."

CHAPTER XI

A VISIT TO VORZA

"Norman, you must be awfully rich."

So the guileless Peronella to him on his return, breathlessly emerging from the room to greet him.

"Have you only just found that out?" said Norman, a.s.suming the slight modest smile of a man who has been hiding his infinite superiority.

"Yes. Why, of course, the buckle you gave me was very beautiful, but I had no idea.... I put it on this morning and went for a walk in it, and all the jewellers came running out of their shops to praise it and ask about it and offered thousands of francs for it. And, O Norman, I wouldn't sell your buckle for anything, but if you would get me one of those lovely big hats the Frenchwoman sells in the High Street, just to go with it."

"You are much finer as you are, my la.s.s, with a kerchief round your head."

"Oh, but do, Norman, dear! It seems that buckle of yours is worth enough to buy a new hat for every girl in Alsander."

Norman was about to surrender when he suddenly remembered he had rather less than a napoleon left in the world. "Well, I am in a foolish fix,"

thought he. "If I don't follow up the buckle, I shall be accused of having stolen it." (He surmised correctly; Alsandrian cunning was already suspicious of him.) "And my clothes are dreadful: a millionaire or Prince, even in disguise, would not wear shiny blue trousers: a Prince in rags is all right, but not a Prince in bags. I wish I had given a hint to that marvellous Arnolfo, but somehow I expected him to know everything without being told. And perhaps it was all a dream and he a phantom."

So he shut himself up in his room for the rest of the day.

"I have important letters to write," he said, impa.s.sively. "You must be content with the buckle, Peronella. Wait a little while, and I'll dress you in gold from head to foot."

He retired, not to write, but to think and meditate. He had supper in his room, and for the first time in his life disliked cabbages. Then he went to bed. As he was falling asleep he wondered whether he had not been raving in his mind for the last few days: whether he was not being fooled: whether he would succeed, what he would do when a King. There was plenty to do: the town was very dirty. An ecstatic vision of having all the drains up flitted across his mind. Succeeded a vision of fine mountain roads with cunning wriggles, and the royal motor car sliding up them. Then the vision of a Court ball with more-than-Oriental splendour. Then the perplexing vision of a little fool of a girl, d.a.m.ned pleasant to see and touch, crying her stupid heart out.