The World Set Free

nding

out of which arise great precipices very high and wild. Above the asphodel fields the mountains climb in rocky slopes to solitudes of stone and sunlight that curve round and join that wall of cliffs in one common skyline. This desolate and austere background contrasts very vividly with the glowing serenity of the great lake below, with the spacious view of fertile hills and roads and villages and islands to south and east, and with the hotly golden rice flats of the Val Maggia to the north. And because it was a remote and insigni

gifts of France to humanity. He was possessed of one clear persuasion, that war must end, and that the only way to end war was to have but one government for mankind. He brushed aside all other considerations. At the very outbreak of the war, so soon as the two capitals of the belligerents had been wrecked, he went to the president in the White House with this proposal. He made it as if it was a matter of course. He was fortunate to be in Washington and in touch with that gigantic childishness which was the characteristic of the American imagination. For the Americans also were among the simple peoples by whom the world was saved. He won over the American president and the American government to his gen

h and flame; the redoubtable King of the Balkans was mobilising. It must have seemed plain at last to every one in those days that the world was slipping headlong to anarchy. By the spring of 1959 from nearly two hundred centres, and every week added to their number, roared the unquenchable crimson conflagrations of the atomic bombs, the flimsy fabric of the world's credit had vanished, industry wa

Etna. Even though the shattered official governments now clamoured for peace, bands of irreconcilables and invincible patriots, usurpers, adventurers, and political desperadoes, were everywhere in possession of the simple apparatus for the disengagement of atomic energy and the initiation of new centres of destruction. The stuff exercised an irresistible fascination upon a certain type of mind. Why should any one give in whil

d more hopeful type. He came across the Atlantic to Italy, and there he gathered in the promises for this congress. He chose those high meadows above Brissago for the reasons we have stated. 'We must get away,' he said, 'from old associations.' He set to work requisitioning material for his conference with an assurance that was justified by the replies. With a slight incredulity the conference which was to begin a new order in the world, gathered itself together. Leblanc summoned it without arrogance, he controlled it by virtue of an infinite humility. Men appeared upon those upland slopes with the apparatus for wireless telegraphy; others followed with tents and provisions; a little cable was flung down to a convenient point upon the Locarno road below. Leblanc arrived, sedulously directing every detail

weet chestnut. For provision on the walk, for he did not want to hurry, he carried with him a pocketful of bread and cheese. A certain small retinue that was necessary to his comfort and dignity upon occasions of state he sent on by the cable car, and with him walked his private secretary, Firmin, a man who had thrown up the Professorship of World Politics in the London School of Sociology, Economics, and Political Science, to take up these duties. Firmin was a man of strong rather than rapid thought, he had

It was by sheer habit and inadvertency that he permitted Firmin, who had discovered a rucksack in a small shop in the town below, to carry both

us,' he said, 'at all. We

carried

of his Professorship, sought to define the policy of his companion. 'In its broader form, sir,' said Firmin; 'I admit a certain plausibility in this project of Leblanc's, but I feel that although it may be advisa

'I am going to set my bro

a curiosity tha

l that nonsense

o was already a little out of breat

ling my royalty and empire on the table - and declare at once I don't mean to haggle. It's haggling -

bruptly. 'But,

ad of him and looked back at h

well as I do. Those things are over. We - we kings and rulers and representatives have been at the very heart of the mischief. Of course we imply separation, and of course separation means the threat of war,

owed earnestly. 'I admit, sir,' he said to a receding back, 'that ther

overnment for all the world,' s

less, unqualified

cried

uption. But a faint shadow of annoya

ay of explanation, 'the Japanese

't hear

e aeroplane down into the sea

the sea

near as that. And with things like this happening, you want me to go up this hill a

l haggl

of it,' sai

t,

won't l

Sir, he will listen to his advisers,' he said, in a tone that in some su

conside

we will drink that beer. It can't be far. We will drink the beer and throw away the bottles. And then, Fir

made was the noise of their boots upon the loose sto

aly, buildings that were used only in the high summer, and which it was the custom to leave locked up and deserted through all the winter and spring, and up to the middle of June. The buildings were of a soft-toned gray stone, buried in rich green grass, shadowed by chestnut trees and lit by an extraordi

Firmin,' he said, 'who go

You see it at its best, sir,' he said, 'before t

autiful anyhow,

hat is fast vanishing away. Indeed, judging by the grass between the s

. It is wonderful to think how long that beautiful old life lasted. In the Roman times and long ages before ever the rumour of the Romans had come into these parts, men drove their cattle up into these places as the summer came on. . . . How haunted i

a busy mouthful of

ought a tankard for

aluminium cup, and the k

denly, 'I could induce you at

min,' said the king. 'My m

ull of bread and cheese and genuine emotio

in, that I won't be a puppet in this game of international politics.' He regarded his com

f their advisers. Advisers! Now I am going to be a real king - and I am going to - to abolish, dispose of, finish, the crown to which I have been a slave. But what a world of paralysing shams this roaring stuff has ended! The rigid

,' protes

of the Sea. To-day must be a sacrament of kings. Our trust for mankind is done with and ended. We must part our robes among them, we must part our kingship among them, and say to them all, now the king in every one must rule

ssumed an expression of despair. Me

o make to the conference. By virtue of the antiquity of his crown he was to preside, and he intended to make h

kingship.' 'It has been my dream, sir

s, Firmin,' s

be unjust,' said F

e getting out of i

ld. They delighted in processions and opening things and being read addresses to, and visiting triplets and nonagenarians and all that sort of thing. Incredibly. They used to keep albums of cuttings from all the illustrated papers showing them at it, and if the press-cutting parcels grew thin they were worried. It was all that ever worried them. But there is something atavistic in me; I hark back to unconstitutional monarchs. They christened me too retr

ted. 'No,

'I don't think you are, sir

been going to say 'talkin

'In a little while no one will understand

my august parents went in a train the coal in the tender used to be whitened. It did, Firmin, and if coal had been white instead of black I have no doubt the authorities would have blackened it. That was the spirit of our treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to us. One never saw anything in profile. One got an imp

ated for

expect it," he used to say of this tiresome duty or that. Most of the things they made him do were silly - it was part of a bad tradition, but there was nothing silly in the way he set about them. . . . The spirit of kingship is a fine thing, Firmin; I feel it in my bones; I do not know what I might not be if I were not a king. I could die for my people, Firmin, and you couldn't. No, don't say you could die

he end they were cut up and a bit given to everyb

elf round and face

ked. 'If you will not listen to me, wh

cked crumbs

can only be done by putting all the world under one government

AT government? I don't see what governm

his hands about his knees, '

ence?' excl

asked the

e,' he added to Firmi

have sanctions! Will there be n

asked the king, with

nt of the

going to worry people to vote for us. I'm certain the mass of men does not want to be bothered with such things. . . . We'll contrive a way for any one interested to join in. That's quite enough in the way of democracy. Perhaps later - when things don't matter. . . . We shall govern all right, Firmin. Government only be

isinterred. . . . We've done with that way of living. We won't have more

en we shall go on governing. What else is there to do? All over the world we shall declare that there is no longer mine or thine, but ours. China, the United States, two-thirds of Europe, will certainly fall in and obey. They will have to

uddenly enlightened. 'Has t

ge? The talking has been done for half a century. Talking and writing. We

tood

habits of a score of

t last. 'And I ha

heerfully. He liked th

Altogether there were ninety-three of them, Leblanc's conception of the head men of the world. They had all come to the realisation of the simple truths that the indefatigable Leblanc had hammered into them; and, drawing his resources from the King of Italy, he had provisioned his conference with a generous simplicity quite in accordance with the rest of his character, and so at last was able to make his astonishing and entirely rational appeal. He had appointed King Egbert the president, he believed in this young man so firmly t

f generous sentiment, most amiably and lightly expressed. 'We haven't to stand on ceremony,' said the kin

Leblanc, nodding his he

in,' said King Egbert. 'And it is the simple common sense of this crisi

min, taking notes behind his master, heard everything that had been foretold among the yellow broom, come true. With a queer feeling that he was dreaming, he assisted at the proclamation of the World State, and saw the message taken out t

h King Egbert was leading them, with a mingled conviction of strangeness and necessity. Things went very smoothly; the King of Italy explained the arrangements that had been made for the protection of the camp from any fantastic attack; a couple of thousand of aeroplanes, each carrying a sharpshooter, guarded them, and there was an excellent system of relays, and at night all the sky would be searched by scores of lights, and the admirable Leblanc gave luminous reasons for their campin

s and attendants at a lower level down the mountain. The assembly dined as it had debated, in the open air, and over the dark crags to the west the glowing June sunset shone upon the banquet. There was no precedency now among the ninety-three, and King Egbert found himself b

He fell presently into an amiable controversy with the Americ

and striking manner, to over-emphasise and over-accentuate, and the president was touched by his national fail

ng dem

, man enters upon his her

saries - if you will forgive me saying so. Yes - I accuse you of a lust for dramatic effect. Everything is happ

something about an

BRICATED. The worst of these huge celebrations is that they break up the dignified succession of one's contemporary emotions. They interrupt. They set back. Suddenly out come the flags and fireworks, and the old enthusiasms are furbished up - and it's sheer destruction of the proper thing that ought to be going on. Sufficient unto

yes, all days

the king, and felt pleased

eace, but what detail was to follow from that unification they seemed indisposed to discuss. This diffidence struck the king as remarkable. He plunged upon the possibilities of science. All the huge expenditure that had hitherto gone into unproductive naval and military

athomable,' s

d reinstate himself after the flickering contradictions of the

l presently learn, give us an idea of the thing

ed out the v

ied presently, 'is the

dent, 'is that sovereignty

omething that floats about us, and above us, and through us. It is that common impersonal will and sense of necessity of which Science is the best

table at Leblanc, and then re-o

d. 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 casuall

could hardly agree with the k

thers, might lift us a little,' the

ed once more t

incipal 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, v

apanese prince in spect

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

y 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

red 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, philos

y 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

But after about twenty minutes' work the sweet sleepiness of the mountain air overcame him, and he dismissed Firmin

e aggressive than the fear of war and warlike neighbours. It is doubtful if any large section of the men actually enlisted for fighting ever at any time really hungered and thirsted for bloodshed and danger. That kind of appetite was probably never very strong in the species after the savage stage was past. The army was a profession, in which killing had become a disagreeable possibility rather than an eventful certainty. If one reads the old newspapers and periodicals of tha

h no doubt, but few have stopped to haggle in a fire-escape. The council had its way with them. The band of 'patriots' who seized the laboratories and arsenal just outside Osaka and tried to rouse Japan to revolt against inclusion in the Republic of Mankind, found they had miscalculated the national pride and met the swift vengeance of their own countrymen. That fight in the arsenal was a vivid incident

h his new official mistress, for his semi-barbaric court was arranged on the best romantic models. His tactics were ably seconded by Doctor Pestovitch, his chief minister. Failing to establish his claims to complete independence, King Ferdinand Charles annoyed the conference by a proposal to be treated as a protected state. Finally he professed an unconvincing submission, and put a

orce of aeroplanes that hitherto guarded the council at Brissago upon the approaching fifteenth of July. But instead he doubled the number upon duty on that eventful day, and made various arrangements for their disposition. He consulted ce

get a satisfactory reply, set its wireless apparatus talking and gave chase. A swarm of consorts appeared very promptly over the westward mountains, and before the unknown aeroplane had sighted Como, it had a dozen eager attendants closing in upon it. Its driver se

t have steered in the continual expectation of a bullet. It never came, and when at last he glanced round, three great planes were close upon him, and his companion, thrice hit, lay dead across his bombs. His followers manifestly did not mean either to upset or shoot him, but inexorably they drove him down, down. At last he was curving and flying a hundred yards or less over the

olding their light rifles in their hands towards the debris and the two dead men. The coffin-shaped box that had occupied the centre

that they disregarded the two dead men who lay bloody and broken amidst th

d the first. '

ken!' said

the things before

I thought,' s

en turned his eyes to the dead man with a crushed chest who lay in

' he said, with a faint

man. A shadow passed between them and the sun, and they looked up to see the ae

,' they answ

come from?' ask

iators for the search, and all six men began a hunt that was necessarily brutal in its haste, for some indication of identity. They examined the men's pockets, their bloodstained clo

d out!' they

a s

a s

n,' said the ma

again over his shoulder with a gesture of inquiry, could see through the two open doors of a little azure walled antechamber the wireless operator in the turret working at his incessant transcription. Two pompously uniformed messengers waited listlessly in this apartment. The room was furnished with a stately dignity, and had in the middle of it a big green baize-covered table with the massive

g and his adviser and three heavily faithful attendants; the aviators who waited now in the midday blaze with their bomb-carrying machines and their passenger bomb-throwers in the exercising grounds of the motor-cyclist barracks below were still in ignorance of the position of the ammunition they were presently to take up. It was time they started if the scheme was to work as Pestovitch had planned it. It was a magnificent plan. It aimed at

e a little too near together to be pleasant. It was his habit to worry his moustache with short, nervous tugs whenever his res

ee what the trouble is with the wirele

on the balcony and gave both of his long white hands to the work, so that he looked like a pale

belfries of the town below presently

ht those men, they were pledged to secrecy. . . . Probably they would

n the blue. . . . Pestovitch came out to him presently. 'The government me

king, and pointed upward

and then glanced for one questioning

ace it out, s

pirals of the descending messengers, and

could well be doing, and so, when at last the ex-king Egbert, whom the council had sent as its envoy, arrived upon the scene, he discovere

ted behind him, and no one else was with him. And as Ferdinand Charles rose to greet him, there came into the heart of the Balkan king again that same chilly feeling that he had felt upon the balcony - and it passed at the c

deny, d

thing to deny. His visitor, with an amiable ease, went on talking

and were still uncaptured? Could it be that even now while this fool babbled, they were

to lift the tail of

door behind him might open with the news of Brissago blown to atoms. Then it would be a delightful

have a ridiculous fancy that your confidence

es pulled himself to

said the ex-ki

t of a chuckle - why the devil should he chuckle? 'Practically none,

st shadow of derision - gleamed out of the envoy's eyes a

watching the drawn intensity of Firmin's face. He came to t

he king. 'An embarg

' said the ex-king Egbert, '

pealed to h

it, sire,' said a bustling lit

aid the ex-king, genially ad

he closed brass door throug

u want to have

uldn't possibly do it until the

the ca

d the ex-king, sti

such a fool as to hide atomic bombs? Nobody. Certain hanging if he's caught - certain, and almost certa

erceptibly. It was well, anyhow, to have a fool to deal with. They might have sent a diplomatist. 'Of course

ex-king, with an air of relie

was concluded, and meanwhile the fleets of the world government would soar and circle in the sky. The towns

n that,' said

hy

aren't in any way

odded 'yes'

er. Meanwhile, if I may be your guest. . . . ' When presently Pestovitch was alone with the king again, he found him in a state of jangling emotions. His spirit was tossing like a wind-wh

ng

'That grinning brute WANTS to hang us,' he said. 'And

Modern State

mbition or a splendid dream? Do you think that our gallant and sublime adventure has any appeal to them? Here am I, the last and greatest and most romantic of the Caesars,

ye that laughs and kee

ke a fascinated rabbit,' said the king i

Pestovitch. 'L

ile they watch us here - they will always watch us here now

under the hay. . . . Pestovitch went and came, instructing trusty servants, planning and replanning. . . . The king and the ex-king talked very pleasantly of a number of subjects. All the while at the back of King Ferdi

terraces down to the town. Pestovitch and his guard-valet Peter, both wrapped about in a similar disguise, came out among the laurels that bordered the pathway and joined him. It was a clear, warm night, but the stars seemed unusually little and remote because of the aeroplanes, each tra

us,' cried

hing of us,' s

d eye of light, that seemed to wink at h

very high and narrow, a twentieth-century rendering of mediaevalism, mediaevalism in steel and bronze and sham stone and opaque glass. Against the sky it splashed a confusion of pinnacles. High up in

ing s

e slip through his fin

t his arms slowly, like one who yawns, knuckle

for the three. It was a hackney carriage of the lowest grade, with dinted metal panels and deflated cushions. The driver was one of the ordi

so by straggling outskirts to the country. And all through his capital the king who hoped to outdo Caesar, sat back and was very still, and no one spoke. And as they got out into the dark country they became aware

ke them,' s

came to rest about them and seemed to be fol

eless,' said the king. 'It's like

That fellow is wat

clutching his minister's arm, 'they are watching us. I'm not

ow. For a few moments there was a grim struggle in the automobile; a gripping of wrists a

hang us,' sai

we were to surrender the bombs. It is

he farm. They could alight there and the king could get brandy, and rest hi

vitch, 'the light

eve he's following us witho

going back and throwing himself on the mercy of the council. 'If there is

e infernal aerop

y not kn

hy couldn't you do

nce shone a circle of bright light. Pestovitch had a brilliant idea. 'I will send my secretary out to make a kind of dispute with the driver. Some

ubtle reputation and i

eathless, but unobserved. But as they ran towards the barns the king gave vent to so

at once or lingere

t see us,'

as the light went swooping up the mountain side, hung f

rn!' cried

away. Kurt and Abel, the two brothers of Peter, had brought the lorries thither in daylight. They had the upper half of the loads of hay thrown off, ready to cover the bo

of a slab being lifted and then of feet descending a ladder into a pit. Then whispering

idn't we shut the barn door?' For the great door stood wide open and all the empty, lifeless yard outsi

r, Peter,' sa

ade a step forward and plucked his brother back. For a time all five men stood still. It seemed that light would ne

stovitch. 'Leave a chink f

and Abel carried the great things up and Peter brought them to the carts, and the king and Pe

the king. '

, and came blundering up the l

them with a whispered remons

and against the dim blue light outs

asked, speaking wit

ch answered: 'Only a poor farmer loading hay,' he said

a very bad light,' said the man at the door,

d drove the fork full at the intruder's chest. He had a vague idea that so he might stab the man to silence. But the man sho

s hand, and as Pestovitch staggered forward into view with the force of

kneeling position and held his electric torch full upon the face of the king. 'Shoot them,' he

n floor beside him. The old fox looked at them sideways - snared, a white-faced evil thing. And then, as with a falt

of his face s

e man who had been sta

and he rolled over with a gro

ent everything in the barn was visible again. They shot

nged backward into the pit. 'If we don't kill them,' said one of the sharpsh

p! I say. Hold your lig

nd Firmin came together and told the ex-

sitting position on

out?' asked

said Firmin.

ere are the bombs? In that farm-house on the opposite hill-side! Why! the place is in sight

eadful bombs still packed upon them. A couple of score of aviators held the yard, and outside a few peasants stood in a little group and stared, ignorant as yet of what had happened. Against the stone wall of the farm-yard five bodies were lying neatly side by side, and Pestovitch had an expression of surprise on his face and the king was chiefl

stuck out with a curiou

do?' he said in answer t

n, if there are

ir?' aske

ch king

rnational Politics, I think it falls to you to bury them. There? . . . No, don't put them near the well.