He paused and glanced down the table at Leblanc, and then

re-opened at his former antagonist.

'There is a disposition,' said the king, 'to regard this

gathering as if it were actually doing what it appears to be

doing, as if we ninety-odd men of our own free will and wisdom

were unifying the world. There is a temptation to consider

ourselves exceptionally fine fellows, and masterful men, and all

the rest of it. We are not. I doubt if we should average out as

anything abler than any other casually selected body of

ninety-odd men. We are no creators, we are consequences, we are

salvagers-or salvagees. The thing to-day is not ourselves but

the wind of conviction that has blown us hither…'

The American had to confess he could hardly agree with the king's

estimate of their average.

'Holster, perhaps, and one or two others, might lift us a

little,' the king conceded. 'But the rest of us?'

His eyes flitted once more towards Leblanc.

'Look at Leblanc,' he said. 'He's just a simple soul. There are

hundreds and thousands like him. I admit, a certain dexterity, a

certain lucidity, but there is not a country town in France where

there is not a Leblanc or so to be found about two o'clock in its

principal cafe. It's just that he isn't complicated or

Super-Mannish, or any of those things that has made all he has

done possible. But in happier times, don't you think, Wilhelm, he

would have remained just what his father was, a successful

epicier, very clean, very accurate, very honest. And on holidays

he would have gone out with Madame Leblanc and her knitting in a

punt with a jar of something gentle and have sat under a large

reasonable green-lined umbrella and fished very neatly and

successfully for gudgeon…'

The president and the Japanese prince in spectacles protested

together.

'If I do him an injustice,' said the king, 'it is only because I

want to elucidate my argument. I want to make it clear how small

are men and days, and how great is man in comparison…'

Section 4

So it was King Egbert talked at Brissago after they had

proclaimed the unity of the world. Every evening after that the

assembly dined together and talked at their ease and grew

accustomed to each other and sharpened each other's ideas, and

every day they worked together, and really for a time believed

that they were inventing a new government for the world. They

discussed a constitution. But there were matters needing

attention too urgently to wait for any constitution. They

attended to these incidentally. The constitution it was that

waited. It was presently found convenient to keep the

constitution waiting indefinitely as King Egbert had foreseen,

and meanwhile, with an increasing self-confidence, that council

went on governing…

On this first evening of all the council's gatherings, after King

Egbert had talked for a long time and drunken and praised very

abundantly the simple red wine of the country that Leblanc had

procured for them, he fathered about him a group of congenial

spirits and fell into a discourse upon simplicity, praising it

above all things and declaring that the ultimate aim of art,

religion, philosophy, and science alike was to simplify. He

instanced himself as a devotee to simplicity. And Leblanc he

instanced as a crowning instance of the splendour of this

quality. Upon that they all agreed.

When at last the company about the tables broke up, the king

found himself brimming over with a peculiar affection and

admiration for Leblanc, he made his way to him and drew him aside

and broached what he declared was a small matter. There was, he

said, a certain order in his gift that, unlike all other orders

and decorations in the world, had never been corrupted. It was

reserved for elderly men of supreme distinction, the acuteness of

whose gifts was already touched to mellowness, and it had

included the greatest names of every age so far as the advisers

of his family had been able to ascertain them. At present, the

king admitted, these matters of stars and badges were rather

obscured by more urgent affairs, for his own part he had never

set any value upon them at all, but a time might come when they

would be at least interesting, and in short he wished to confer

the Order of Merit upon Leblanc. His sole motive in doing so, he

added, was his strong desire to signalise his personal esteem.

He laid his hand upon the Frenchman's shoulder as he said these

things, with an almost brotherly affection. Leblanc received this

proposal with a modest confusion that greatly enhanced the king's

opinion of his admirable simplicity. He pointed out that eager

as he was to snatch at the proffered distinction, it might at the

present stage appear invidious, and he therefore suggested that

the conferring of it should be postponed until it could be made

the crown and conclusion of his services. The king was unable to

shake this resolution, and the two men parted with expressions of

mutual esteem.

The king then summoned Firmin in order to make a short note of a

number of things that he had said during the day. But after about

twenty minutes' work the sweet sleepiness of the mountain air

overcame him, and he dismissed Firmin and went to bed and fell

asleep at once, and slept with extreme satisfaction. He had had

an active, agreeable day.

Section 5

The establishment of the new order that was thus so humanly

begun, was, if one measures it by the standard of any preceding

age, a rapid progress. The fighting spirit of the world was

exhausted. Only here or there did fierceness linger. For long

decades the combative side in human affairs had been monstrously