E. F. Benson

The Parliament House at Amandos, standing next the cathedral in the square, is but a small building, for its full attendance is only sixty; but for beauty of proportion and exquisiteness of finish it would be difficult to name its fellow. Over the main entrance is a carved wooden gallery, where the friends of Members can attend a debate; at the other a raised platform, on which are the seats for the six Ministers of the Crown, and the throne itself. These are near the wall, and close behind the throne is the small door which communicates with the Princess’s private way into the Palace. Three steps lead up from the floor of the House on to the platform, which is faced by a low bronze balustrade of dolphins, and foliage, and mermaids. It is the custom for any Minister who wishes to address the House on the debate to take his place not on the platform, but on the Ministerial front bench. Similarly the monarch, if contributing to the debate, sits as the first of his own Ministers. The custom is an ancient one, and certainly signifies that while appealing to the House, and arguing for or against a question, all are equal as Members of that House, and carry no official rank.

The seats of the Members are arranged in two rows on each side of the gangway of the House, which is paved in variously coloured marbles from BÚlteck. The most exquisite patterns in red, green, and yellow adorn it, and in the centre, in lapis lazuli, jasper, and white marble, are wrought the crown and royal arms of RhodopÉ. Behind the Members’ seats on each side stand the busts of the Princes of RhodopÉ, an unbroken line dating from the time of Constantine, first Prince of the House of Ægina. This is one of the finest of the series, and is by Desiderio da Settignano, one of Donatello’s few pupils. The seats of the Members are great oak armchairs in scarlet brocade, and the walls are covered with old oak woodwork of the fifteenth century.

But the marvel of the place is the throne; it is made throughout of ivory, a panel of gold brocade is let into the back, and the cushion of the seat is covered with the same. Two gold lions support the arms, and back, arms, and front are thickly incrusted with precious stones, and goldsmith’s work attributed to Benvenuto Cellini. The footstool is likewise of ivory, and gold brocade covers the tread of it. The whole is set on four steps, the first of which is covered with a thick facing of white Arabian agate, the second with jasper, the third with cornelian, and the fourth with chalcedony. Thus, though it stands far back from the House, the whole of it, owing to its elevation, is clearly seen over the low bronze balustrade of the platform.

The morning of December 31 dawned clear and light after the tempest of the two days before, but an ominous stillness, like the hush before a storm, hung over the town. None was bold enough to forecast the probable issue of events—none, indeed, knew exactly what was happening. Those who refused to believe that Sophia was responsible for this crisis were already in the large majority, but as it was thought that she was in England, nothing but a telegram from her—unless, indeed, she was still ignorant of what was taking place—could within the bounds of possibility save the situation. That this preposterous Bill could be carried was not worth consideration; it was not even known whether Prince Petros would vote for it. None knew what manner of communication he would make. It was hinted that he would merely mention that it was introduced by the Sovereign, and thus would become law, others thought he might go so far as to disclaim all share in it, and even express sympathy with the nation. Some, as has been already mentioned, saw in him the first cause of it, and were wildly indignant against him; others, again, affirmed that none were so indignant as himself, and that he regarded the fall of Sophia as inevitable, and not unjust. What line the present Government would take, what form the future Government would assume, none knew. There was, however, certainly a considerable party which would gladly have seen Petros on the throne, if Sophia really intended to commit this wild and obstinate mistake; others, it was supposed, were Republicans in tendency, and pointed silently to Malakopf as the President of the Republic. One thing only, in the midst of this feverish uncertainty, was sure—the Bill could not become law.

The debate was fixed for half-past three, but long before that time the gallery of the House was filled to overflowing with eager eyes, and every Member, chilly and apprehensive, was in his seat. All the Ministers were in the body of the House, indicating that all meant to take part in the debate. This by itself was ominous enough, for it showed that there would be a debate on a Bill introduced by the Crown, a fact in itself unique and unprecedented. Prince Petros had not yet arrived, but the half-hour still tingled in the air from the great bronze chime of the cathedral, when the private door from the Palace opened, and he came quickly in. The Members, all wearing levÉe dress, remained standing till he had taken his seat on the throne; then, after a moment’s pause, he took up the paper for the day, and again read out the text of the inexplicable Bill. It was noticed that he looked pale, but his voice was steady.

‘“That all gambling-houses in the realm of RhodopÉ, of every sort and degree, private or public, be closed, and that no game of hazard be henceforward played therein.

‘“That to play any such game in public, or to bet in public, be a felony.

‘“That licenses shall be withdrawn from every licensed gambling-house in the aforementioned realm of RhodopÉ.

‘“That the building known as the Club be converted into an asylum for decayed and idiotic old gentlemen, the purpose for which the ground was originally intended.

‘“That the person known as Pierre be sent back to Monte Carlo, his passage (second class) paid.

‘“That these regulations come into effect on the first day of January (new style), 1857.

‘“Sophia,
‘“Hereditary Princess of RhodopÉ.”’

In dead silence he read, in dead silence he put down the paper on the little ivory table by the throne, and walked to the seat reserved for the monarch, if he should take part in the debate, as the first of his Ministers. His step did not falter, he neither hurried nor hung back, and after a pause of a moment or two, in which the House waited in dead silence, he took a little sheaf of papers from his pocket, and, rising to his feet, turned his back on the throne so as to face the Members, and spoke.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you have heard in silence and in dismay the communication I have read you from the throne. With what dismay I read it I cannot hope to picture to you. It is an anomaly that any speech should be made on a Bill introduced by the Crown except by the Crown itself, but I observe that Her Royal Highness’s Ministers have taken their places in the House. I sympathize with them, and though I suppose I have the right, as the Princess’s representative, to order that they go back to their places’—here an angry murmur arose from the gallery—‘I cannot find it in my heart to do so. I suspend the rule that no speech should be made but my own. In this I trust I am not disloyal to my beloved wife, whom I represent. I really cannot feel clear how she would act. I must use my judgment.

‘I do not know what manner of speech you expect from me,’ he continued. ‘Indeed, I scarcely know what to say, and yet I must tell you what is in my heart. At least I may claim your pity, for no man, I think, was ever in so terrible a position. Every word of that Bill was bitter to me, for, indeed—you hear my voice for the last time—the people of RhodopÉ are very dear to me. But dearer is my love for my wife’—here his voice rose a little—‘the Princess Sophia, and dearer the little rag of loyalty which I can still keep, which nothing—no iron chains of circumstance, no monstrous necessity—can strip from me.’

The last words vibrated with intensest passion; they seemed instinct with truth and loyalty. The man was a great orator. He paused a moment, and went on more calmly:

‘But in justice to myself, though you shall all see which way my conscience commands me to vote as the representative of Her Royal Highness—in justice to myself, I must say a few words of exculpation. Believe me, I am altogether innocent of this stupendous error. Not one word have I exchanged with the Princess Sophia on this matter; she never consulted me on it, and perhaps wisely, for she must have known what I should feel. It is scarcely six months ago that she in person inaugurated the club, in the formation and execution of which I may, without boasting, claim no inconsiderable share. That club, so I am happy to think, has poured money like a snow-fed torrent into RhodopÉ; many hundreds of the citizens have shares in it, which yield a percentage which no gold mine can rival. Indirectly how much more has it proved to have enriched us! Was not the capital last autumn one hive of visitors from other countries, bringing not only wealth to us, but an interchange of ideas, enlarging our horizons, making us feel that we had brethren from over-sea? And now what? This great building is to be closed, the visitors will come no more; they will leave our pine breezes for the languorous air of the Riviera, and we—we shall go back to the old life. Let me take a few figures to show you just what this means, dealing only with small items easy to understand. Last year there were eight restaurants and five hotels in RhodopÉ, now there are forty-six restaurants and seventeen hotels completely open, and far more in course of construction. This increase is not profitable alone, nor even principally perhaps, to the enterprise of those who have started them. The farmer finds a readier market for his sheep, the vine-grower for his wines; there is not a single trade which has not profited largely by this. This increased prosperity has filtered through every minutest channel of our industries. Where sheep only fed on the mountain-side now resound the cries of the golfers, and the barren land north of MavromÁti fetches a rental of eighty pounds sterling as a links. Take, again, the case of the vine-grower. Such is the wonderful fertility of our soil, in other years we have often sent wine abroad, for the consumption at home is not equal to the supply. But now what do we see? Our vineyards cannot keep pace with the demand; we import much from France, from Germany, and the cheaper hotels, I am told, from California and Australia, and the duty swells our revenues. From this I hoped that we should advance even further, that more land would be taken into cultivation, more folk profitably employed. Alas, and alas, for my dreams!’

The House had been attentive when he began; now, you may say, they hung on hooks. It had not, at any rate, been expected that the Prince would express himself so unmistakably. A murmur of sympathetic applause rose and died and rose again. The tide of popular approval flowed in his favour; he at least was opposed to this measure. Malakopf alone was uneasy; he shifted in his seat, his quick brain sought handles in the Prince’s words, yet from every point he retired baffled. Petros, it is true, was creating an impression most unfavourable to Sophia. Malakopf had to do the same for him. The Presidency of the Republic still hung in the wavering balance.

‘I had hoped otherwise,’ continued Petros. ‘I had hoped to see the commerce of Europe pour into RhodopÉ. Acre on acre of fruitful soil waits only for the cultivator to say “Sesame!” We are not a tax-ridden folk like Italy; our country, happier than England, produces more than unwholesome beer and unpayable corn. We wanted only the impetus to begin, for we are but at the beginning. The impetus we have had; what follows? Again RhodopÉ will become a sealed land, a land of mountains and inhospitable ravines to the civilized world, a minor State, an insignificant Balkan province. Ah——’ and he stopped with a cleverly taken gulping breath.

Once more a murmur of more audible applause thrilled through the benches; sympathy seemed on the way to be warmed to boiling-point. Malakopf signed to the Prince to cease, but the latter took no notice, and the Prime Minister held himself in readiness to make his attack.

‘Two years ago—more than two years ago,’ continued Petros, speaking slowly and regretfully, ‘I first set eyes on your incomparable land. Many daydreams were mine. To the best of my poor ability I have striven to make them real. I have devoted my time, my powers, such as they are—but, oh, how gladly!—to contribute to the welfare of the country. I have had two thoughts only—loyalty to my wife, loyalty to my land—and now——’

Had the Prince and Malakopf had leisure to observe, they would have noticed that eyes and attention were no longer glued on them. The people of RhodopÉ, always fond of drama, were having a delightful afternoon. A more palpable stillness had fallen on the House, and when Petros paused on the pathetic word, no sympathy thrilled the Assembly. But his great point was approaching, and it was too imminent for Malakopf to disregard. The unstable tide was setting too strongly for him not to interfere, and as he rose the Prince sat down in an assumed humility, and with a gesture to Malakopf to proceed.

‘I have a question to ask,’ grated out the Prime Minister. ‘The Princess Sophia is known to be tolerant to gambling, yet now she introduces a Bill condemning it. She shuts up the club she has opened—on whose suggestion? We are here in debate, a course unprecedented when the Crown introduces a Bill. That such a Bill should be opposed is beyond question, but who is the real author of it? Who but one has persuaded her to this course? Too long—I say it openly—have we suffered under the strange whims of the House of Ægina. Princess Sophia, as you all very well know, spends her days at Monte Carlo, yet she treats us like children, and would forbid us to gamble in RhodopÉ. And has she never been seen at the tables? And how often is she seen in her place in this House? Who, after all, is the Prince Petros but the husband of the gambling Princess? Who, after all, is the Princess herself? Her place is here among us, but where is she?’ And looking round to face Petros, he faced also the throne, and his speech froze.

Petros sprang to his feet, determined, like Malakopf, to play his last card.

‘I, too, am no friend of the House of Ægina,’ he cried, ‘except in so far as I am the husband of the Princess. We want a ruler who will have the true interests of the nation at heart; we want——’

And he, too, seeing Malakopf stare open-eyed before him, stopped, then turned round, for Malakopf’s eyes were fixed not on him, but beyond.

The platform where stood the throne and the official seats of the Ministers was brilliantly lighted. On each side of the throne were three seats, untenanted, for the Ministers were all in the body of the House. On the throne sat Sophia, who had entered through the private door from the Palace. She was dressed in white brocade; round her neck were four strings of diamonds, conspicuous among which shone the Eastern gem; on her head was the great tiara, an heirloom of RhodopÉ, and she wore all her Orders. She sat as still as the throne on which she was seated. She seemed to listen to the debate, for her head was bent a little forward, and her mouth was slightly parted, as if she would have something to say in reply. The sun, low to its setting, shone full on her through the window above the western door, and she was enveloped in a mantle of rose. The beauty of her was incomparable.

For a moment there was dead silence when the echo of Petros’s last words had died in the groining of the roof; then she raised her head a little, and in a voice of gold, ‘His Highness Prince Petros is addressing the House, gentlemen,’ she said.

Still dead silence, except for some woman in the gallery, who suddenly burst into a cackling hysterical laugh.

‘I should like to hear my husband continue his speech,’ she said, when the woman had stopped laughing.

Malakopf had sat down; Petros alone continued standing. Then Sophia rose, but the House, still open-mouthed, continued gazing at her. She drew herself up to her full height.

‘Gentlemen,’ she said; and they rose to their feet.

Without a shade of excitement in her face or hurry in her movement, as if the subject of the debate were of no concern to her, she walked across the platform, her train whispering behind her, and down to the Ministers’ bench. Petros was in the place she would occupy if taking part in the debate, and not even looking at him, she waved him aside with her hand.

‘Do not leave the House,’ she said. ‘I have heard your speech; you shall hear mine.’

Next Petros stood Malakopf, and the Princess swept by him with an air of ineffable disdain. In her hand she held the Bill Petros had just read out, and standing in her place she glanced through it, and her face flushed. Then, ‘Be seated, gentlemen,’ she said.

She still held the Bill in her hand, and when the House had seated itself she tore and tore it through and through, and again through, scattered the pieces on the ground, and burst into speech.

‘That for the Bill!’ she said—‘that for the Bill which falsely and impudently is before the House as my Bill. Before God, I never set eyes on the thing before, and I think you will read the truth of what I say if you look at the face of the Prime Minister on my left and on the face of my husband. It is one of the duties of Royalty to be punctual, and am I not divinely punctual? Oh, it is incredible!’ she cried—‘it is incredible that two men could be so infamous and so stupid! And I was to be the victim of this astounding conspiracy—I! Indeed, gentlemen, I am not in the humour to be a victim. You heard the Prince’s speech; he spoke of his loyalty to the interests of the country; he spoke, as I thought, very convincingly of the benefits the club had brought to our country; but above all, to cap his insolence, he spoke of his loyalty to me. Did a man ever hear the equal of that? Oh, Petros, you are unapproachable!’ and she looked at him for the first time.

Then she turned to Malakopf: ‘You spoke of the strange whims of the House of Ægina,’ she said. ‘The strangest of all their whims was on the day that you were made Prime Minister. I heard you ask, “Who, after all, is the Princess Sophia?” I, after all, am the Princess Sophia! “Where is the Princess Sophia?” you asked. Malakopf, I am here. In the name of my ancestors!’ she cried, pointing to the row of busts—‘in the name of my ancestors, Alexis Malakopf, I thank you for your loyalty to my House!’

Then, turning to the Chief Justice, ‘I impeach both these men on a charge of high treason against myself, Sophia, hereditary Princess of RhodopÉ. Let them be removed from the House; they await their trial.’

They were removed in custody, and till they had vanished there was absolute silence in the House. Then Sophia rose again.

‘I intend,’ she said, ‘to make no further inquiry into this prodigiously futile attempt against the throne. Indeed, it is difficult to take such folly seriously, and were I not a little angry I should laugh. If any present was associated with that dismal couple we have seen leave the House, it is a matter for himself alone, and let him thank his Maker that I heard no more speeches on the subject. This Bill, not being introduced by me, falls to the ground. And now, gentlemen, for a pleasanter task. I am here according to immemorial custom to thank my Ministers and the Members of this House for the services they have rendered to me and to my country during this past year. We have seen the revenues increase and multiply during the last eight months; never, I think, has RhodopÉ been in so prosperous a condition. I thank you, gentlemen, from my heart for your services.’

She curtsied right and left to the members of the Assembly, and then stood a moment silent.

‘One thing more only,’ she said. ‘The customary New Year fÊtes will take place as usual, and Prince Petros’s list of invitations is mine. Gentlemen, the House is prorogued.’

Flesh and blood could stand it no longer; Sophia’s appearance at such a moment, the magnificence of her beauty, her royalty of demeanour, would have made a man dumb from his birth to shout. The Minister of the Interior leaped on to his brocaded chair like a schoolboy, and the Chief Justice, being stout, mounted on to his as if it had been a horse.

‘Three cheers, and another and another, for the beloved Princess Sophia!’ he cried, waving his three-cornered hat.

The scene was indecorous in the extreme. Some jumped on to their chairs, others on to the table; they pounded the ground with sticks and stamped and yelled. The chair of the Chief Justice collapsed under him, but those near said he continued cheering even at the moment his head came into sharp collision with the marble floor. The gallery was one open mouth, roaring. It had already got about the town that the Princess had come back, and when she appeared at the main door leading into the square, where her carriage was waiting for her, a sea of faces met her. As the door was opened the shouts of those inside streamed out like a river, and, like the sea, the voices of the crowd outside swallowed them up. In a moment her horses were unharnessed, and the folk fought and pushed for a place between the shafts. Indeed Sophia had come back.