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.Twelve bared blades were pointed at his breast.We approached in a large semicircle, in silence, the horses at a trot.I shielded my eyes in order to see better.The light of the flares now fell on the carriage, and inside it I saw Bianca, mortally pale, and, sitting next to her, Rudolph.He was holding her hand and pressing it against his breast.I slowly dismounted and advanced shakily towards the carriage.Rudolph rose as if wanting to get out and speak to me.Stopping by the carriage, I turned to the cavalcade following me slowly, their sabres at the ready, and said: ` Gentlemen, I have troubled you unnecessarily.These people are free and can proceed if they wish, unmolested.No hair of their heads is to be touched.You have done your duty, gentlemen.Please sheath your sabres.I don't know how completely you have understood the ideal that I engaged you to serve, and how profoundly it has fired your imagination.That ideal, as you can see, has now completely failed.I believe that, as far as you are concerned, you might survive its failure without much damage, for you have already survived once before the failure of your own ideals.You are indestructible now; as for me.but never mind that.I should not like you to think,' and here I turned to those in the carriage, `that what has happened has found me entirely unprepared.This is not so.I have been anticipating it all for a long time.If I had persisted in my error for so long, not wishing to admit the truth to myself, it was only because it would not have been seemly for me to know things that exceed my competence, or openly to anticipate events.I wanted to remain in the role destiny had allotted to me, I wanted to fulfil my task and remain loyal to the position I had usurped.For, I must now confess with regret, despite the promptings of my ambition, I have only been a usurper.In my blindness, I undertook to comment on the text, to be the interpreter of God's will; I misunderstood the scanty traces and indications.I believe I found in the pages of the stamp album.Unfortunately, I wove them into a fabric of my own making.I have imposed my own direction upon this spring, I devised my own programme to explain its immense flourishing and wanted to harness it, to direct it according to my own ideas.The spring has carried me away for a time; it was patient and indifferent and hardly aware of me.I took its lack of response for tolerance, for solidarity, even for complicity.I thought that I could decipher, better than spring itself, its features, its deepest intentions, that I could read in its soul or anticipate what, overcome by its own immensity, it could not express.I ignored all the signs of its wild and unchecked independence, I overlooked its violent and incalculable perturbations.`In my megalomania I went so far as to dare to pry into the dynastic affairs of the highest powers, and I have mobilized you, gentlemen, against the Demiurge.I have abused your receptiveness to ideas, your noble credulity, in order to implant in you a false and iconoclastic doctrine, to harness your fiery idealism for a wanton, inconsiderate action.I don't want to determine whether I have been suited to the highest duties to which my ambition has driven me.I was probably called only to initiate them, to be abandoned later.I have exceeded my competence, but even that has been foreseen.In reality, I have known my fate from the outset.As the fate of that luckless Maximilian, my fate was that of Abel.There was a moment when my sacrifice seemed sweet and pleasing to God, when your chances seemed nil, Rudolph.But Cain always wins.The dice were loaded against mc.' At that moment a distant detonation shook the air, and a column of fire rose above the forests.All those present turned their heads.`Stay calm, ' I said, `it is the Wax Figures Exhibition on fire.I left there, before our departure, a barrel of powder with a lighted fuse.202 203 I ,SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS SPRING You have lost your home, noble gentlemen, and now you are homeless.I hope that this does not affect you too much?' But these once powerful individuals, these leaders of mankind, stood silent, helplessly rolling their eyes, crazily keeping a battle forma- tion in the distant glare of the fire.They looked at one another, blinking, without a thought.'You, Sire,' I addressed myself to the archduke, `were wrong.Perhaps you too were guilty of megalomania.I had no right to try to reform the world on your behalf.Perhaps this has never been your intention either.Red is, after all, only a colour like all the others, and only all colours put together contribute to the wholeness of light.Forgive me for having misused your name for purposes that were alien to you.Long live Franz Joseph the First!' The Archduke shook at the sound of that name, reached for his sabre, then hesitated and thought better of it; but a more vivid flush coloured his painted cheeks, the corners of his mouth lifted, his eyes began to turn in their orbits, and in a measured step, with great distinction, he began to hold court, moving from one person to the other with a radiant smile.They moved away from him, scandalized.The revival of imperial manners-at this unsuitable moment created the worst possible impression.'Stop this, Sire,' I said, 'I don't doubt that you know by heart the ceremonial of your court, but this is not the time for it.I want to read to you, noble gentlemen, and to you, Infanta, the act of my abdication.I am abdicating completely.I am dissolving the triumvirate.I am giving up the regency in favour of Rudolph.You, noble gentlemen,' here I turned to my staff, 'are free to go now.Your intentions were excellent, and I thank you most sincerely in the name of our dethroned idea' – tears sprung to my eyes – 'which, in spite of everything.Just then a shot was fired somewhere nearby.We all turned our heads in that direction.M.de V stood with a smoking pistol in his hand, strangely stiff and leaning to one side.He grimaced, then staggered and fell on his face.'Father, Father!' screamed Bianca and threw herself upon the pros- trate man.Confusion followed.Garibaldi, an old hand who knew everything about wounds, leaned over him.The bullet had pierced his heart.The King of Piedmont and Mazzini lifted him carefully by the arms and laid him on a stretcher.Bianca was sobbing, supported by Rudolph.The Negroes who just then appeared under the trees crowded round their master.'Massa, Massa, our kind massa,' they chanted in chorus.`This night is truly fatal!' I cried, 'This tragedy won't be the last.But I must confess that this is something I had not foreseen.I have wronged him.In reality, a noble heart beat in his breast.I hereby revoke my judgement of him, which has obviously been shortsighted and prejudiced.He must have been a good father, a good master to his slaves.My reasoning has failed even in this instance, but I admit it without regret.It is your duty, Rudolph, to comfort Bianca, to redouble your love, to replace her father.You will probably want to take his body on board; we shall therefore form a procession and march to the harbour.I can hear the siren of the steamship.' Bianca got back into the carriage; we mounted our horses.The Negroes took the stretcher on their shoulders and we all turned towards the harbour.The cavalcade of riders brought up the rear of that sorry procession.The storm had abated during my speech, the light of flares opened deep long cracks among the trees, and fleeting black shadows formed a semicircle behind our backs.At last we left the forest.We could see in the distance the steamship with its large paddles.Not much remains to be added, the story is nearing its end.Accompanied by the sobbing of Bianca and the Negroes, the body of the dead man was taken aboard.For the last time we re-formed our ranks.'One more thing, Rudolph,' I said, taking hold of a button of his jacket.'You are leaving now as heir to an enormous fortune [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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