The telltale sound—a quiet, barely audible chink, the characteristic sound of loose change in the pocket—once again reached the ears of the chancellor and the council.
For a second time the noble old man fixed his intent and lifeless gaze on the conventional face of the enemy ambassador ...
and yet again, more clearly, the telltale sound was heard.
By now it was evident that someone who wished to bring the king and the banquet into disrepute was in this clandestine way trying to tempt the monarch’s unhealthy cupidity.
The telltale jingling rang out once more, this time so clearly that Slothbert heard it—and the serpent of covetousness crawled onto his vulgar junkyard owner’s mug.
The disgrace!
The disgrace!
The horror!
So fanatical in its baseness was the king’s soul, so trivially narrow, that he did not covet larger sums but precisely petty ones; small sums were capable of leading him to the very depths of hell.
Oh, the most fundamental
monstrousness of this matter was the fact that even bribes did not attract the king so much as tips—tips for him were like sausage to a dog!
The entire hall had frozen in mute anticipation.
Hearing the familiar, oh-so-sweet sound, King Slothbert put down his goblet and, forgetting everything else, in his boundless foolishness ...
licked his lips unobtrusively ....
Unobtrusively!
That was what he imagined.
The king’s lip-licking burst like a bomb in front of the entire banquet, which went red-faced with shame.
Archduchess Renata Adelaide let out a muffled cry of disgust!
The eyes of the government, the court, the generals, and the clergy turned to the person of the old man who for many years had guided the helm of the state in his toil-worn hands.
What was to be done?
What course of action was to be taken?
And then it was seen that from the pallid lips of the historic old man, heroically, a thin old man’s tongue issued forth.
The chancellor was licking his lips!
The chancellor of the state had licked his lips!
For a moment the council continued to wrestle with its astonishment; but eventually the tongues of the ministers issued forth, and after them the tongues of the bishops ...
the tongues of the countesses and marchionesses ...
and all licked their lips, from one end of the table to the other, in the mysterious luster of crystal, and the mirrors repeated this act to infinity, plunging it in mirrored perspectives.
Then the king, furious, seeing that he could not permit himself anything, since they copied everything he did, pushed back abruptly from the table and stood up.
But the chancellor too stood up.
And after him everyone stood.
For the chancellor no longer hesitated; he had already made a decision whose extraordinary boldness put convention to rout!
Realizing that nothing could now conceal from Renata the king’s true nature, the chancellor had determined to throw the banquet openly into the struggle for the dignity of the Crown.
Yes, there was no other path—the banquet must, with utter relentlessness, repeat not only those actions of the king that lent themselves to repetition, but
precisely and above all those that did not lend themselves to repetition
—since it was possible only in that way to transform those deeds into archdeeds—and this violence on the person of the king had become necessary and unavoidable.
For this reason, when a furious Slothbert pounded his fist on the table, breaking two plates, without a second thought the chancellor smashed two plates and everyone smashed two plates apiece, as if in honor of God; and the trumpets sounded!
The banquet was prevailing over the king!
Fettered, the king sat down and remained sheepishly in his seat, while the banquet waited for him to make the slightest move.
Something extraordinary—something fantastical—was being born and was dying in the vapors of the abandoned feast.
The king jumped up from his place at the head of the table!
The banquet jumped up too!
The king took a few steps.
The banqueters too.
The king began to wander aimlessly around the hall.
The banqueters also wandered.
And the wandering, in its monotonous and infinite wandering, attained such dizzy heights of archwandering that Slothbert, overcome by a sudden dizziness, gave a roar—and with bloodshot eyes he flung himself on the archduchess—and, not knowing what to do, he set about gradually strangling her before the eyes of the entire court!
Without a moment’s hesitation the helmsman of the ship of state flung himself on the nearest lady and began strangling her—and the remaining guests followed his lead—while archstrangulation, repeated by the multitude of mirrors, gaped from every infinity and grew, and grew, and grew—till it finally suppressed the gasping of the ladies.
It was at this point that the banquet broke the last ties linking it to the ordinary world; now its mind was made up!
The archduchess fell to the floor—dead.
The strangled ladies fell.
And immobility, a hideous immobility, intensified by the mirrors, speechless, began to grow and grow ...
And it grew.
It grew unceasingly.
And it intensified, it intensified in the oceans of quiet, in the boundlessness of silence, and it reigned, it, archimmobility itself, which had descended, had taken over and was ruling ...
and its rule was indivisible ...
Then the king fled.
Waving his arms, with a gesture of the utmost panic Slothbert seized himself by the backside and without a second thought started to run away ...
He ran toward the door, to get as far away as possible from that Archkingdom.
The gathering saw that the king was getting away from them—another minute and he would get away!
And they watched, stupefied, for the king could not be stopped ...
who would dare to stop the king by force?
“After him,” roared the old man.
“After him!”
The cold breath of night blew on the cheeks of the dignitaries as they rushed out onto the square in front of the castle.
The king ran away down the middle of the street, and ten or twenty paces behind him rushed the chancellor, the banquet, and the ball.
And
here the archgenius of that archstatesman once again reveals itself in all its archmight—for THE IGNOMINIOUS FLIGHT OF THE KING BECOMES SOME KIND OF ATTACK, and it is no longer clear whether THE KING IS FLEEING or whether, on the contrary, THE KING IS RUSHING FORWARD AT THE HEAD OF THE BANQUET!
Oh, those rushing sashes and medals of the ambassadors, fluttering in the furious rush; the purple of the bishops; the ministerial dress coats and tail coats; oh, the canter, the archcanter of so many potentates!
The common people had never seen such a thing before.
Magnates, owners of vast tracts of land, descendants of the most splendid families, galloping alongside officers of the general staff, whose gallop was accompanied by the gallop of all-powerful ministers, with the rush of marshals, chamberlains, with the canter of most noble, rushing ladies of the court!
Oh, the rush, the archrush of marshals and chamberlains, the rush of ministers, the canter of ambassadors in the darkness of night, by the light of lanterns, beneath the firmament of the heavens!
Cannon sounded in the castle.
And the king charged!
“Forward!”
he cried.
“Forward!”
And archcharging at the head of his archsquadron, the archking passed on into the dark of night!