Savrola quotes

There had been a heavy shower of rain, but the sun was already shining through the breaks in the clouds and throwing swiftly changing shadows on the streets, the houses, and the gardens of the city of Laurania.

Everything shone wetly in the sunlight: the dust had been laid; the air was cool; the trees looked green and grateful.

It was the first rain after the summer heats, and it marked the beginning of that delightful autumn climate which has made the Lauranian capital the home of the artist, the invalid, and the sybarite.

even the trees contained their occupants, while the windows and often the roofs, of the houses and offices which overlooked the scene were crowded with spectators. It was a great multitude and it vibrated with excitement.

Wild passions surged across the throng, as squalls sweep across a stormy sea.

Here and there a man, mounting above his fellows, would harangue those whom his voice could reach, and a cheer or a shout was caught up by thousands who had never heard the words but were searching for something to give expression to their feelings.

All was now over. The spirit of the mob was broken and the wide expanse of Constitution Square was soon nearly empty. Forty bodies and some expended cartridges lay on the ground.

Both had played their part in the history of human developement and passed out of the considerations of living men.

Nevertheless the soldiers picked up the empty cases, and presently some police came with carts and took the other things away, and all was quiet again in Laurania.

“I have passed an anxious hour,” she said, and then, catching sight for the first time of his bruised forehead, she started. “But you are wounded.”

“It is nothing,” said the President. “They threw stones; now, we used bullets; they are better arguments.”

“What happened at the Senate?”

These were practically the organs on which the Government relied for support, and the President always read them first to fortify himself against the columns of abuse with which the Radical, Popular, and Democratic Press saluted him, his Government, and all his works.

The worst result of an habitual use of strong language is that when a special occasion really does arise, there is no way of marking it.

The Fabian, The Sunspot, and The Rising Tide had already exhausted every epithet in their extensive vocabularies on other and less important incidents.

The smoke of his cigarette curled round his head. Life—how unreal, how barren, and yet, how fascinating! Fools, calling themselves philosophers, had tried to bring home the bitter fact to men.

His philosophy lent itself to a pious fraud⁠—taught him to minimise the importance of his pains, and to magnify that of his pleasures; made life delightful and death incidental.

Zeno had shown him how to face adversity, and Epicurus how to enjoy pleasure. He basked in the smiles of fortune, and shrugged his shoulders at the frowns of fate. His existence, or series of existences, had been agreeable.

Fools, calling themselves philosophers, had tried to bring home the bitter fact to men. His philosophy lent itself to a pious fraud—taught him to minimise the importance of his pains, and to magnify that of his pleasures; made life delightful and death incidental.

Zeno had shown him how to face adversity, and Epicurus how to enjoy pleasure.

He basked in the smiles of fortune, and shrugged his shoulders at the frowns of fate. His existence, or series of existences, had been agreeable. All that he remembered had been worth living.

That was a point; could not tautology accentuate it? He scribbled down a rough sentence, scratched it out, polished it, and wrote it in again. The sound would please their ears, the sense improve and stimulate their minds.

What a game it was! His brain contained the cards he had to play, the world the stakes he played for.

As he worked, the hours passed away. The housekeeper entering with his luncheon found him silent and busy; she had seen him thus before and did not venture to interrupt him.

“Ah, we have other weapons. When we have degenerated, as we must eventually degenerate, when we have lost our intrinsic superiority, and other races, according to the natural law, advance to take our place, we shall fall back upon these weapons.

Our morals will be gone, but our Maxims will remain.

The effete and trembling European will sweep from the earth by scientific machinery the valiant savages who assail him.”

“We shall learn the answer when we die.”

“If I thought that,” said Savrola, “I should kill myself tonight out of irresistible curiosity.”

He paused, and looked up at the stars, which shone so brightly overhead. She followed his gaze. “You like the stars?” she asked.

“Perhaps your fate is written there.”

“I have always admired the audacity of man in thinking that a Supreme Power should placard the skies with the details of his squalid future, and that his marriage, his misfortunes, and his crimes should be written in letters of suns on the background of limitless space. We are consequential atoms.”

“You think we are of no importance?”

“Life is very cheap. Nature has no exaggerated idea of its value.

I realise my own insignificance, but I am a philosophic microbe, and it rather adds to my amusement than otherwise.

Insignificant or not, I like living, it is good to think of the future.”

“How detestable! Still he has a plain cook and he will be worth watching tonight. He gets in such a state of terror when Savrola holds forth that he is ridiculous.

I hate cowards, but they make the world the merrier.

”

but he repressed the inclination. “Good, I will come. I shall see you at breakfast tomorrow, my dear, till then, farewell,” and giving her a weary smile he walked off.

Thus it is that great men enjoy the power they risk their lives to gain and often meet their deaths to hold.

Lucile was left alone, not for the first time when she had wanted companionship and sympathy. She was conscious of an unsatisfactory sensation with regard to existence generally.

“

Oh, it is only now, when the play is growing high, that I begin to appreciate the game.

Besides, death is not very terrible.”

Savrola laughed softly. “Oh no,” he said, “that would not be fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war.”

“Is both,” she said, and then burst into tears.

“I am glad that this tyranny is to be ended.”

“Remember that we pay for every pleasure and every triumph we have in this world.”

“I will take my chance.”

“I trust, I would be glad if I could say with conviction, I pray, that the lot may not fall on you. But it is true nevertheless that we must pay, and for all the good things in life men pay in advance.

The principles of sound finance apply.

”

Well, he might be killed himself; and as the thought occurred to him he looked forward with a strange curiosity to that sudden change, with perhaps its great revelation. The reflection made him less dissatisfied with the shallow ends of human ambition.

When the notes of life ring false, men should correct them by referring to the tuning-fork of death.

It is when that clear menacing tone is heard that the love of life grows keenest in the human heart.

As he reached it, the first streaks of morning came in through the parted curtains of the windows.

The room, in the grey light with its half-empty glasses and full ashtrays, looked like a woman, no longer young, surprised by an unsympathetic dawn in the meretricious paints and pomps of the previous night.

It was too late to go to bed; yet he was tired, weary with that dry kind of fatigue which a man feels when all desire of sleep has passed away. He experienced a sensation of annoyance and depression. Life seemed unsatisfactory; something was lacking.

“It is an insult,” she said.

“It is a cat playing with a mouse,” he rejoined bitterly.

“Do? Sulk, protest—but give in. What else can we do? Their ships are on the spot; ours are cut off.”

“A fool, a fossil, and out of date,” cried the President.

“Stupid, but steady,” said Sorrento.

“You can rely upon his attempting nothing brilliant; he will do what he is told, and nothing more.”

“Why not Drogan?” suggested the War-Minister.

“I can’t stand his wife,” said the President.

“He is a good musician, Sir,” interposed Miguel.

“We are but poor philosophers,” he said.

“Pain and love make sport of us and all our theories. We cannot conquer ourselves or rise above our state.”

“Why should we try?” she whispered, looking at him with wild eyes.

“Down on your knees and beg for mercy, you hound; down, or I will blow your face in!”

“I have always tried to despise death, and have always succeeded in despising you. I shall bow to neither.”

“We shall see,” said Molara, grinding his teeth. “I shall count five—one!”

but the sadness of it all was unaltered, no matter who might be at fault. “Goodbye,” he said rising. “I must go, though I leave my heart behind. Much depends on me—the lives of friends, the liberties of a nation.”

And so he departed to play a great game in the face of all the world, to struggle for those ambitions which form the greater part of man’s interest in life; while she, a woman, miserable and now alone, had no resource but to wait.

And then suddenly the bells began to ring all over the city with quick impatient strokes. There was the sound of a far-off bugle-call and a dull report—the boom of an alarm-gun. The tumult grew;

confused shoutings and cries rose from many quarters. At length one sound was heard which put an end to all doubts—tap, tap, tap, like the subdued slamming of many wooden boxes—the noise of distant musketry.

The revolution had begun.

“You insult me,” said Tiro with profound contempt.

“Rats leave a sinking ship.”

“The wiser they,” rejoined the Secretary; “they could do no good by staying. I have always heard that aides-de-camp are the first to leave a fight.”

“Ah! but you have always been one,” replied Tiro bluntly. Savrola gave a short laugh. “I mean,” continued the other, “that you have always been trying to upset things.”

“I have been loyal to my treachery,” suggested Savrola.

“Yes—we have always been at war with you; but this viper—”

This would enable them to avoid the fire from the entrenchment, or would at least reduce the dangerous space to a few yards. Savrola looked in the direction Tiro indicated. “Surely this is shorter,” he said pointing across the square.

“Much shorter,” answered the Subaltern; “in about three seconds it will take you to another world.”

Savrola rose. “Come on,” he said; “I do not allow such considerations to affect my judgment. The lives of men are at stake; the time is short. Besides, this is an educational experience.”

Suddenly a loud shout arose from the crowd. They had seen the smoke of the fire and knew that the end was at hand. “Molara, Molara, come out! Dictator,” they cried, “come out or burn!”

It often happens that, when men are convinced that they have to die, a desire to bear themselves well and to leave life’s stage with dignity conquers all other sensations.

Molara remembered that, after all, he had lived famous among men. He had been almost a king. All the eyes of the world would be turned to the scene about to be enacted; distant countries would know, distant ages would reflect.

A profound hush overspread the whole mass of men. “Who has committed this murder?” he asked in low hoarse tones, fixing his glance on the head of the Secret Society.

“It is not a murder,” replied the man doggedly; “it is an execution.”

“In the name of the Society.”

His advantage was not denied. “Undoubtedly, Sir,” said the officer, “it is in your power to render great services to the Provisional Government and to the cause of Liberty and Justice.”

“At present,” replied the Admiral dryly, “it is the cause of Justice that appears to need my support.”

To that the officers could find no more to say than that they had fought for a free Parliament and meant to have their way.

The count of hands was received with cheering. Savrola shrugged his shoulders. “It is impossible that this can go on.

Are we become barbarians in a morning?

”