The Vengeance of Rome by Michael Moorcock Read Free Book Online Page B

governments,’ said Boris our café friend. And Shura had winked at me.
    For all his apparent cynicism, Shura was merely realistic. Stavisky was one of those concerned men of power prepared to stand up to the corrupt forces of big business. At the Bristol there was much talk of returning to old values by new, radical methods—of ‘thinking the unthinkable’ as the phrase went in those days, ‘and forgiving the unforgivable’. Everywhere was chaos. Only ruthless, decisive action could restore society and return nations to their former pre-war stability and prosperity.
    This heady talk, the intellectual cut and thrust, was a huge treat for me. In recent months, aside from brief meetings with Rosie von Bek, when we had little time for this sort of conversation, I had known only the pronouncements of a pagan prince and the opinions of an intelligent Negro, neither of whom had been exposed to the main streams of European politics.
    Rose von Bek, admittedly, had prepared me for some of the ideas I now encountered, but it was elixir to my soul to hear all the details of what Mussolini was doing for Italy. The communists were ruining Germany, civil war in France was almost inevitable, republicanism was destroying Spain, the union-bankrupted British were effectively a spent force, American neutralism was fuelled by their vast domestic problems, and Stalin threatened the very foundations of Christendom. The old political structures were proving useless in the modern world; party divisions were defeating the very democracy they were supposed to defend, creating only misery and uncertainty. The majority of people were not anyway natural democrats. Careless liberalism was the enemy of everyone, even those it pretended to represent.
    I began to spend much of my time with a charming young Spanish officer. Lieutenant Jaime Pujol shared many of my frustrations and much of my idealism. He was a gentle soul forever concerned about the pain of the world. How could we eradicate it? ‘It is not right that people live in uncertainty and terror. Society has failed them. Even the Church is failing them. The left offered them justice and failed to provide it. The right offers stability but at too high a price. Where can they turn? Fear is becoming a way of life in far too many parts of the world, especially in Europe. Thepower has been torn from the hands of the men of conscience. Gangsters rule everywhere—in Russia, in Germany, in America, and increasingly in Spain. Their “revolutions” are meaningless, self-serving and cruel. They have no religion or morality. But we cannot merely replace one tyranny with another. What’s the answer, my dear Señor Gallibasta? Not all strong leaders are gangsters, surely?’
    He mourned both the fall of the old politicians and the fashion among Europe’s crowned heads for abdication. ‘They are seized with some kind of collective guilt. They are frightened by what happened to their Tsar. They believe the process towards republicanism is inevitable. Mussolini has proven that idea a lie, yet still they continue as if they are responding to the will of the people rather than the will of a tiny minority of leftist zealots. Believe me, Señor Gallibasta, I have every sympathy with their anger and share their understanding of the world’s injustices, but these imbalances must be addressed by men of conscience, not by the politics of envy. How has such a frightful situation come about?’
    I was no better equipped than my friend to answer this increasingly familiar question and, like him, could only point to Mussolini. ‘The will of a single individual,’ I said, ‘is what it takes—if his will represents also the will of the nation. Really, it’s all fascism offers—security through unity. But it takes a great man to combine the best ideas from a collection of isms, shape them into a coherent whole and create unity. Unity must be