Read The Phoenix Land for Free Online Page B

gold and are contemporary with the ball. It is an object to admire and ponder over. Whence did it come? How did it arrive in Hungary? What fate carried it from place to place and country to country and through what hands did it pass, what adventures had it known? The sparkling crystal above the golden shaft symbolized that above even the noblest of human values ruled the dispassionate clarity of the Word and Will of God.
    It was now past seven o’clock and even though the women were still stitching away behind the altar and the ceremonial cushions were not yet ready to be put in place, the main doors had to be opened.
    At once a stream of invited guests invaded the church.
    Among the first was Móric Esterházy, the Minister-President elect.
    I had just greeted him when the dark figure of a thin young man appeared alone at the top of the steps which led up to the main entrance of the church, silhouetted in the doorway against the light of the morning sky. He was dressed in a dark-green gold-embroidered tail suit and was holding his three-cornered hat under his arm. He moved forward and joined us and for a moment I did not recognize the man behind the finery, for I had previously only met him in the simplest of plain clothes. It was Czernin, the new minister for foreign affairs.
    He asked me where he was to sit and then shook hands with Esterházy.
    From the way he stood and moved, and from the knowing smile upon his face, I at once understood everything that was passing through his mind. It was as if he had said to Esterházy out loud for everyone to hear: ‘See? I’ve made it! Now it’s your turn. It’ll come soon, you’ll see!’ In that one little moment I felt it so clearly that it was as if he’d spoken, and I was at once seized by the same anticipatory anxiety that so many others had felt as soon as Czernin’s nomination to office had been announced. Once again I was filled with dread, fearing what so many othersfeared, namely that the gossip about Franz Ferdinand’s prophecy was now brought to fulfilment. I tried to chase the thought away, telling myself that it would be madness at this critical time during the war to think of dispensing with Tisza, who alone among contemporary Hungarian statesmen had the greatness of soul and strength of character to carry the burden of the nation’s survival. After the war perhaps … but now? No! It was impossible!
    More people were flooding in, the men in splendid uniforms and the women in their elaborate best, and the seats in the tiered stands were beginning to fill up. Those few artists we had managed to fit inside the church – Alajos Strobl, Oszkár Glatz and the others – hurried to their allotted places high up under the windows on the right. The court ladies, those in waiting on the queen, arrived in a group and, dressed as they were in traditional Hungarian court apparel, it was as if a bevy of old family portraits had suddenly come alive. They wore fantastic diamond tiaras and diadems on their heads and their pearl and jewel-embroidered capes glittered like a cascade of rippling light. It was the last parade of Hungary’s thousand-year-old history, a pageant that was never to be repeated and which will now never be seen again.
    As we stood at the great doors telling everyone where to find their places I was suddenly accosted in French by a tall, broad-shouldered man in the uniform of a Hungarian general. It was the king of Bulgaria … and he was very cross indeed.
    He would like to see the crown before he went to his place, he said shortly.
    I led him to the Loretto chapel.
    He inspected everything carefully, for he was a great connoisseur of all things artistic and a man of exceptional taste. In his total absorption in studying the Crown Jewels, for a few moments he forgot his anger. Then, turning back to me, he spoke passionately of how he had been insulted. He had been seated in the gallery of the oratorium, next to the little six-year-old crown prince;