FROM THE JOURNAL OF CITIZEN SCHMECK – 24th Day of Vulpioz, Year Twenty of the Republic
In the Republic, in the time of general public peril, the Chairman’s word is not to be denied.
To act otherwise is to perish—and then, over what remains of us, command will be taken by one whom the people never elected, and to whom the people shall never hold account.
Even Citizen Henscher himself declared that, after several hours of hammering out serious plans, the two of us had earned not merely a full plate of soup and boiled beef in the Assembly’s refectory (consumed, as is proper, in Henscherian silence—for Hencher, when he eats, is always mute, and when he eats meat, he silently contemplates the creature whose flesh he partakes of), but also twenty-five Republican minutes of “discussion under the freest possible agenda” at the same table, accompanied by two cups of tea. So it had to be.
No one joined us at our table: the other members of our parliamentary club were elsewhere, and to all others, it was evidently more comfortable to observe us from a distance.
Thus, around the table of the neutral representative Michner-Radger, my colleague not only by office but also by race, there gathered a rather numerous company—doubtless hoping to learn, through his lupine hearing, all that he might overhear from our conversation.
Hencher would have said: So be it! In a Republic, all must be public.
For my part, I would say that secrecy is sometimes the golden liberty even of the most upright citizen.
“Let us ask one another, O good citizens, the following question,” began Henscher, setting down his utensils—and I could not be certain whether he thus addressed me because he knew there were listeners present, or whether this elevated form of speech was simply habitual with him, even when third parties who might overhear were, beyond all reasonable doubt, absent.
“What shall become of our personal lives—yours, Citizen Schmeck, and mine, Citizen Henscher—if the infamous afsen should return to power, and place once more upon his head the perforated metal crown?”
“Ha, my fellow citizen, who indeed could know?” I replied. “After all, can the natural goodness of our minds rival the evil ingenuity of royalist executioners in devising torments with which to adorn our final hours and moments? Yet it shall not come to that—for the ultimate victory shall be ours alone.”
I am certain that to my listener—or listeners—my answer conveyed perfect composure, faith in the power of justice, and disdain for the enemy. So it ought to be, in the interest of public morale.
Yet in truth, a chill did pass through me when Henscher uttered his question, as it does each time I think upon the possibility of defeat. I believe, in any case, that I would do all within me not to fall alive into enemy hands—though I must confess my dread that the instinct of self-preservation might, in the fatal moment, forbid me to enroll myself among the fallen heroes of the Homeland.
The antidote to such dreadful thought has always been one and the same: not, I confess, the certainty of the triumph of good over evil, nor of the invincible power of the people—for these are, in the end, two noble fictions—but rather the prospect of a merciless reckoning with those who would prepare for us a fearful end, especially with those of them who are already within our grasp.
Thus I cried out: “It is far easier to answer what shall become of the personal lives of clarence and rupert afsen—and what shall become, for those two, shall be no good thing!”
“Hurrah!” thundered Hencher, striking his fist upon the table.
The blow resounded so mightily that the head of Michner-Radger—who, unlike myself, could not have anticipated this presidential outburst—jerked under the assault of sound upon his ears.
“But again,” continued Henscher, “there are those among us who propose postponement of the annihilation of the aforesaid pair. What, then, is the motivation of such persons, especially considering the question we have just put before ourselves?”
There may be many motives—tactical calculation in negotiation with the enemy, the usefulness of hostages, or even that most banal bourgeois pity.
Yet certainly among some there is also that very motive of which Hencher was surely thinking.
Still, lest in the eyes of the neutrals the werewolf always seem the sniffer-out of treason, I allowed Henscher the pleasure of answering his own question after only a few seconds’ pause:
“The motive of the suspicious and the base who would spare the afsens is none other than this: that if by misfortune the tyrant returns to power, they may say to him and to his lackeys, Behold, Your Majesty, Henscher and Schmeck sought to destroy your sons, but we saved them. And then Henscher and Schmeck, like once poor Gelbs, shall be pelted with fruit upon the scaffold—those two excellent friends of mankind—while the traitors themselves may, a day or two later, upon the Pillar of Shame, receive from the oppressors of virtue the false laurels of pretended merit.”
At this, the tables of neutrals—among whom were those who had publicly urged clemency for the afsens—could not remain silent.
Indeed, Hencher had spoken loudly enough that all could hear him, even without lupine ears. Two of them even approached us, clapping our shoulders, attempting to embrace us, and solemnly promising that they would never betray us.
When they had withdrawn (unsteadily and with embarrassment), Hencher continued:
“Scoundrels… not only here, but everywhere—in the city, in the village, in the forest, in the field! The worse the condition of the Republic, the more scoundrels there shall be—ready to betray the future of the Homeland for a beetroot, for half a carrot, for the wretched remnant of a life they will live as slaves without honour or integrity!”
Hencher was shouting now, waving his fist:
“If the general condition of the Republic worsens even a little, there will be more of those willing to hand their tribunes to the executioners, than those who refuse with righteous indignation…”
I knew that Hencher spoke the truth: we fight for the people, and their good is our highest goal; yet we must never underestimate the corruptibility, cowardice, and weakness of the small man—small not by obscurity, for such men are found even among the most renowned—but small by the poverty of virtue within him.
“Except under one condition,” Hencher went on,
“and that is that the Republican Code be applied yet more energetically, yet more consistently—that its letter cleanse the public spirit of all vicious and unworthy tendencies that corrupt both society and man.
Show me a man in the street,”—and here he raised his forefinger in oratorical majesty—“and I, as a legislator, can make of him either an angel of virtue or the most despicable villain, depending upon the laws I give him, and the example I set before him.”
“Hurrah!” resounded from all sides of the Assembly refectory—sincerely or not, who could tell? But the impression of Hencher’s triumph was soon spoiled by the loud and insolent laughter of the leading Hrebsites, who had entered the hall to take their own repast.
“Behold the Destroyers!” greeted them Henscher in his habitual manner—the same as on that day when, at their own urging, the demolition of Balsburg, that Relerenite town which had already, under the new order, replaced its stage-royal actors with honest and industrious Republican citizens, was carried out by a terrified crowd in the anxious days of the expected Ferdinandian Armada, and was subsequently proclaimed a revolutionary act and, by virtue of that proclamation, unpunishable.
“Behold the Destroyers!” echoed Ostven, insolent and self-satisfied. Turning to the neutrals, he added with mock solemnity:
“We have been distributing coffee to the children—to make them grow tails, so we might have more werewolves among us!”
Ostven, that wild offshoot of the bourgeoisie, certainly places no faith in so childish a superstition, but he delights in mocking the respectable citizens who, it is said, still frighten their children with this supposed consequence of drinking a beverage which, like so many other things, has become increasingly scarce.
“And tell us,” Ostven continued, “will Hencher distribute to the functionaries of his club the blood of the two afsens, to make them aristocrats?”
This was, of course, a jab at Hencher’s new proposal for a Republican Aristocracy.
Was it not Citizen Henscher, who only yesterday, in The New Regime[1], had written the following words:
“Would it not be fitting that the Republican people create its own aristocracy—an aristocracy shaped by the measure of the people; elective, not hereditary; earned by virtue and by personal sacrifice for the Republic; whose title and castle, upon the death of one holder, shall be granted not to his eldest son, but to that citizen of the Republic most deserving by his deeds; an aristocracy which renounces all executive authority, and which shall possess no privileges save honour itself, and the right to dwell with family in a castle—yet without abandoning personal modesty and industrious virtue, sharing those stately halls with the Republican institutions therein established, institutions open to all citizens of the province, so that together they might offer a living example of civic virtue?”
“Nobility lies not in the blood but in the heart,” replied Henscher gravely, “and destructiveness lies in the hands—and in the empty head.”
“The very yearning for life in castles already corrupts the people,” said Hrebs, his moustache bristling as he glared at Hencher. Removing his inevitable pipe from his mouth, he rasped as though to spit the next instant:
“I spit upon castles and upon aristocrats, elective or hereditary alike. Surrounded by all those carpets and trinkets, a proletarian could never feel that homely warmth which he feels in a small attic flat, gathered with his family within a few honest square meters, in Republican simplicity, modesty, and plainness!”
Hencher’s face contorted in disgust as Hrebs’s words, increasingly personal, struck like blows:
“Especially you, Hencher—in your dwelling stuffed with royal furniture—you can never feel the warmth that I feel in my attic! Nor can your pet fox warm you as does my citizen-wife, who, though her husband is a representative of the people and the leader of a faction, still earns her bread by the labour of a laundress, as she did under the tyrant’s rule. But one day, your ornate furniture shall burn in the same flames that consumed Ferdinandite towers of Balsburg!”
At this, both neutral and Masdenite deputies—and even some of our own—fell silent at their tables, ceasing to chew, lest the sound of mastication drown any word of the venomous exchange between the two heads of the parliamentary clubs. For though it was neither the first nor the last quarrel of its kind, each such clash always carried within it the seed of consequence for the entire Nation’s fate.
I hoped that many, despite all, would side with Henscher—if only because they would sooner imagine themselves, one day, as Republican aristocrats in castles than as Hrebsites in dusty attics.
“Your fondness for narrow quarters, Citizen Hrebs,” I interjected, seeking to avert a full quarrel between the leaders (for Masden remains our most dangerous enemy among those who call themselves Republicans), “perhaps gives you that sense of homey warmth because you were raised as the son of a naval gunner, and narrow space instinctively recalls your childhood and reminds you of your brave and virtuous father. Yet it is in man’s nature to strive for greater, not lesser, comfort. We do not fight comfort, but the unjust principles of its distribution.”
“I take pride in my furniture,” answered Hencher proudly, “a gift from the district administration for my merits in the overthrow of the monarchy—taken from the wicked, that the good might be rewarded with it! The beauty of one’s surroundings ennobles the soul; the crudity of one’s surroundings debases it. You, Hrebs—better that you had remained a seller of stoves, where fire belongs, than that as a deputy of the people you should justify the burning of beauty and usefulness alike! And tell me—does your friend, Citizen Filusen, still, like your wife, earn his livelihood in the same manner as under the tyrant?”
For it is well known that Citizen Filusen, under the monarchy, had been a vagabond and a gambler—both occupations strictly forbidden under the Republican Code.
“Henscher, you bourgeois, you petty moralist, you peddler of virtue!” growled the muscular Filusen through his teeth, clenching his fists as though revealing that, in another time and under other circumstances, he would have settled matters with Henscher by more physical means.
Once again, I felt a wave of pity for Hencher, who, despite his peculiarities and peculiar ways of thinking, labours so much for the common good, and yet faces so much insult and opposition. I am certain, moreover, that Henscher—though he is so often compelled to say it of himself—is, at heart, a good man.
“The Masdenites too will not support the idea of a Republican aristocracy,” I said, again seeking to prevent Henscher, stung by Hrebsite insults, from forgetting who our true and most dangerous adversary in the Assembly is.
“The Masdenites see in the acquisition of luxurious houses, even for use alone, not by civil contract—purchase, or other legal instrument—something unnatural; and they see an even greater unnaturalness in the bearing of aristocratic titles.”
My glance fell upon the two neutrals who had earlier embraced Hencher and me, patting our shoulders and solemnly promising never to betray us. They sat together at their table, their full plates untouched, awaiting the end of our quarrel.
Whether they would betray us, were the tyrant ever to return, seemed to me a question far more pressing than that of whether some Republicans might enjoy the privileges of former aristocrats. And to that question, knowing both men only superficially, I cannot give either a certain or even a probable answer.
And would I myself, when my active political labours are done, wish to become a Hencherian Republican aristocrat—and would such an aspiration, as Hrebs claims, corrupt me?
First of all, while I serve the Republic, and while I remain among those who govern her, I feel safer when confronted by the fear of what might follow should she fall. If the Republican aristocracy, as Hencher imagines it, must be stripped of political power, then as its member I would feel passive, powerless—and my fear of defeat would grow.
But if the title were granted only when the Republic’s future were secure—?
Duke Schmek? Count Schmek? With a full moon and a vaccine upon my personal coat of arms?
No—the arms of my Homeland suffice for me; no other can bring greater happiness. As a representative of the people, I already spend the better part of my life within the magnificent edifice of the Assembly—especially now that its session is perpetual. That is splendour enough for a life both honest and patriotic.
And as for rest from political labour? Only if I reach deep old age and infirmity shall I permit myself such luxury—for even after victory, the Republic will yet have so much that is vital and necessary to accomplish.
[1] The newspaper of the same name "New Regime", Hermann Henscher, a book-keeper from Eustate by profession and residence, has been editing since the very first year of the Republic. Being published during the secret sphere once a month and after the Night of going out into the public sphere twice a working decade and, if necessary, more often, printed with the funds of almost all of Henscher's property, this newspaper made its initially unknown author one of the most popular ideologues of the Revolution, people’s representative and later, as we have seen, chairman of the Committee of Public Command and thus the effective chief executive of the Republic of Guntreland. Many institutions of the Republican Code developed from the ideas that Henscher devised and explained for the first time on the pages of this newspaper.
