Free The Days of the King by Filip Florian Page B

Strauss. Together with the others he intoned
Laetentur Caeli
and
Tecum principium,
plunging with his spirited voice into the spell of psalms 95 and 109, and at the end of the service when the calm river began to flow backward, from the Catholic Church to the congregation's houses, he strove to meet up with Mathilde, but glimpsed neither her nor her brother, Jakob Vogel the optician. So he stopped off at his own house instead, helped Siegfried to climb into his wicker basket, and carrying him on his right arm, he headed toward the home of his friend Otto Huer. They all sang in chorus, and even Siegfried purred along, by the stove. They drank raki and wine, they feasted on countless dishes, above all that steaming wonder,
die Weihnachtsgans,
roast goose. They remembered the old, the sick, and the poor, and even the ravenous stray dogs, for whom they filled two pots with bones. And they prayed for them all.
    A carriage had waited in front of the redbrick building, Number 18 Lipscani, for an hour and a half. A lieutenant of the guard, with sideburns, had orders to hand the dentist a note. It was from the prince, inviting him to the palace for tea by the Christmas tree in the library.
    In the Yuletide atmosphere, spending Christmas for the first time far from his family, Prince Carol had announced during the course of the evening that he was not feeling well, and had withdrawn to his office, refusing all company. For hours on end, without rising from his desk, he set down on paper, in five versions, many of the things that had burdened him in recent months. With varying degrees of intimacy, occasionally sipping a bitter cherry liqueur, he wrote in turn to his father, mother, sister, and brothers, adjusting tone and nuances to the face and personality of each addressee in mind. Events were compressed or detailed; descriptions that were cold in one letter grew impassioned in another. He placed the emphasis now on politics and affairs of state, now on feelings and sorrows. Sometimes he revealed himself to be strong, poised, and optimistic, sometimes he bemoaned his fate and gave free rein to his doubts. And in all the different versions of his brief history as monarch, one each for Karl Anton, Josephina, Leopold, Friedrich, and Marie, he referred to the large Oppenheim loan, the finishing touches to which had been made in Paris after his confirmation by the Sublime Porte, a lifesaving transaction that quelled the protests of officers and functionaries, even if it did involve the repayment of 32 million francs over twenty-three years, on a principal of just 18.5 million. Then he related how the elections to the two chambers of parliament in November had been not only an occasion for brawls, abuses, and manipulations but also depressing in their outcome, which had left the govemment without serious support. Likewise, in disappointed terms he described the first palace ball, held at his own personal expense, an act of normality and decency in his opinion, but also a target for vile attacks, on the grounds that he had squandered the country's money in a period of grinding poverty. Finally, long after nightfall, when the loneliness had become oppressive, the prince felt a need to chat and to forget. Smoking a cigarette, he thought of that intelligent, warm, discreet man, Joseph Strauss the Berliner, and of his miraculous tea, which inspired dreams and indolence. At around midnight, however, he was informed by an officer that the dentist was not to be found.
    Then, toward morning, he heard a murmuring brook and rustling grass; he saw a sunlit glade, with beeches, alders, and sycamores. He awoke bewildered and wet, and the stain on the sheets resembled neither spittle nor dried blood—it was different from other stains.

4. The Dwarf on the Tightrope
    T HE CANDLES HAD been snuffed out a short time before, and so in the rustling air only the gray soles of a pair of feet could be made out. When the darkness had diluted, the calves and