Oliver VII by Antal Szerb Read Free Book Online Page B

Delorme. Take good care of them, with better fortune and, above all, with greater pleasure, than I did. I have just one wish: that you guarantee that my former ministers will not be punished for what they did. Appearances notwithstanding, they are human.”
    “Naturally we shall carry out Your Highness’ wishes,” Delorme said, most politely.
    The ministers breathed a huge sigh of relief. Several of them went up to the conspirators to engage them in private conversation, assuring them that their own personal role had been a complete mistake: none of them had wanted to sign the treaty, only that wicked Pritanez. They all urged Delorme to exclude Pritanez from the amnesty granted at the King’s request and to make an example of him.
    “I’ve done what I had to do, gentlemen, and I must take my leave of you,” the King said. “I should like to say ‘till we meet again’ but the expression is hardly appropriate for a monarch going into exile.”
    The Prime Minister came and stood before him. With great emotion, he ceremonially declared:
    “Your Highness, at this momentous hour we ask for Heaven’s blessing upon your journey, and promise that we shall always hold the memory of you in our hearts. You basically meant well, and to err is only human.”
    There was quiet applause.
    “Thank you,” said the King. “God be with you. Dr Delorme, proclaim my wishes to the people.”
    And he quickly left the room.
    In that instant Sandoval realised why the voice of the Nameless Captain had sounded familiar. It was the voice of the King.
     
    Sandoval’s work was now very much in fashion. His sole exhibition was opened by Prime Minister Delorme himself, and all the leading lights of Alturian society queued up to commission their portraits. He was much sought-after, and profoundly bored. His lack of enthusiasm began to reveal itself in the pictures: faces whose pouting lips hung below their chins, eyes popping out of the heads, and heads that sat not on a neck but on an alarmingly elongated tongue. The extended tongue became a leitmotif . Houses, trees, mountains, all were painted with this elongated tongue, and above them a radiant sun or moon with its own tiny version of the same. Finding a way to incorporate the theme into seascapes proved more of a problem . The younger painters, under the spell of his glamour as a revolutionary, developed Tonguism into a full-blown school, though the thoughts of his bourgeois clientele whose portraits were done during this period turned increasingly to suicide.
    Sandoval himself became more and more ill-humoured. Anyone who has breathed the heady air of conspiracy finds it hard to accommodate himself to the inconsequential skirmishings of the art world.
    One day he returned as guest to Algarthe. When the Duke became King Geront the First, he refused to leave his home. He would not be separated from his collections, and, because he feared they might be damaged in transit, he had been unwilling to move to the palace. That was now occupied by Princess Clodia and her personal court.
    The Duke (now, more properly, the King) showed Sandoval his new acquisitions. He had been, Sandoval decided, a real gentleman, both moderate and discreet. He had not sent for the greatest treasures of the National Gallery: the Van Eyck still hung in its place. He had commandeered nothing excessive , just delicate little rarities, things that meant nothing to most people but were revered by the true collector. But he had changed very little. He took no more interest in politics than before, entrusting everything to the statesmanlike wisdom of his daughter.
    He was now so far removed from events that there would have been no mention of Sandoval’s last visit had he not chanced to meet Princess Clodia, who happened to be calling on her father at the time.
    That she carried the burden of state on her shoulders, it was clear to see. By now Alturia’s problems were not trivial. With the rejection of the Coltor Plan the