Oliver VII by Antal Szerb Read Free Book Online

and detained in the building.
    The government were sitting in the King’s study, in a state of feverish anxiety and completely powerless. No one could say where the King was. Even the Major had disappeared. It was assumed that they had left the palace, taken refuge with the local authorities and were making arrangements there. But no one dared leave the building. From the windows they could see how the crowd outside had grown as night had fallen.
    What was making them even more nervous was that, from somewhere inside the building, they could hear an indefinable sound—rattling, yelling, and then dying away—that gnawed away at their imagination: the sort of noise cattle make as they approach the abattoir.
    “We should get to the bottom of this at least,” the Prime Minister said. “Secretary of State Salvid, you must deal with it. Go and see who is doing all this shouting, and why.”
    “On my own?” the Secretary of State began, with horror in his voice.
    He dared not go. Finally they all got up and set off towards the room where Pritanez was imprisoned.
    By this stage Pritanez was quite beside himself.
    “Major!” he was bawling, “Let me out. This is worse than being with a woman. I’m innocent. I’m innocent!”
    The ministers looked at one another in amazement. Pritanez with a woman? Pritanez innocent? The man was clearly raving. Finally, with extreme caution, the Prime Minister unlocked the door, pulled at it, and immediately leapt to one side. The sudden opening had brought Pritanez tumbling out in a faint.
    Four of them lifted him up and laid him down on a divan. They too were struck by the unusual size of the shirt and the collar that they unbuttoned at his neck. These totally incomprehensible details induced a sense of horror perhaps even greater than all the larger signs of a revolution at hand.
    But their preoccupation with Pritanez was short-lived. He had barely begun to come to, when they heard the same roar from the square outside that King Oliver and Princess Ortrud heard from their apartments. Pritanez immediately fainted again.
    “What was that?”
    Everyone rushed to the window and gazed at the sea of people outside the palace. The noise out there was growing steadily louder.
    Just then the Secretary of State, who had been sent to look for the King, came back into the room.
    “He’s in Princess Ortrud’s apartments. Come quickly.”
    They rushed out, abandoning the unconscious Finance Minister, and burst in on the couple in such great haste that all sense of etiquette was forgotten.
    “Come away from the window, Your Highness!” the Prime Minister shouted from the far side of the room. “They can still see you!
    Then the minister with responsibility for the press burst in:
    “Your Highness: terrible news! They are demanding that you abdicate and hand over your ministers.”
    The ministers cried out in horror.
    “Aha—duty is not a bed of roses,” the King observed. “But what else can we do? I believe any resistance would be futile and dangerous. What can we possibly do against the raging tide of the people?”
    “But all is not yet lost,” the Prime Minister remarked. “The Palace Guard … ”
    As if on cue, Count Wermold, the Colonel of the Guard, appeared.
    “I am ashamed to have to tell you,” he announced, “that the Twelfth Regiment, who were on duty, laid down their arms and went over to the insurgents as soon as the mob began to march.”
    “So there you are, then,” said the King.
    “But the house guards are still here,” the Prime Minister insisted. “They’ve got automatic weapons. They could machine gun the rebels from the palace windows.”
    “What are you thinking?” the King shouted furiously. “Shed the blood of innocent people? Who do you think I am, Philip II or the One-Eared?”
    “With our life and our blood!” the Colonel proclaimed. “We’ll form a ring around Your Highness and break out of the palace. Tomorrow morning I shall plan our