Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 10. Edward Bellamy

and Chinese in succession; each of these invasions killed off the native population to the last man. In the course of those years services were held, or Mass celebrated, in the Church of St. Vitus by a pastor, a solicitor, an Imam, an Archimandrite and a bonze, none of them enjoying any permanent success. The only gratifying change was that the Stavovsky Theatre was invariably full, being used for the purposes of an army store.

      When the Japanese had thrust the Chinese out of Eastern Europe in the year 1951 there arose for a brief space a new Middle Kingdom (as the Chinese call their native land), and chance willed that it should fall precisely within the frontiers of the old empire of Austria-Hungary. Once again an aged ruler dwelt in Schönbrunn, the old mandarin Jaja Wir Weana, one hundred and six years old, “to whose consecrated head rejoicing nations turn their eyes with childlike love,” as the Wiener Mittagszeitung assured its readers daily. The official language was Chinese, which at one sweep did away with all nationalistic rivalries. The State god was Buddha. The stubborn Catholics of Bohemia and Moravia moved out of the country, or became the victims of Chinese dragonades and confiscations, by which the number of national martyrs was increased to a remarkable extent. On the other hand, several prominent and prudent Czech patriots were exalted to mandarin rank by Most Gracious Decree as a reward for their enlightened adaptability. The Chinese administration inaugurated many new and progressive measures, such as the issuing of tickets in place of provisions; but the Middle Kingdom fell to pieces very early, as the supply of lead necessary for munitions ran out, and all authority thereupon collapsed. A few of those Chinese who were not killed remained in the country even in the ensuing period of peace, and for the most part occupied high Government positions.

      In the meantime the Emperor Bobinet, now residing in India, at Simla, learnt that an Amazon Empire of women existed in the hitherto unexplored river-territory of the Irawaddy, Salwin, and Mekong. He set out for that region at once with his Old Guard, but never again returned. According to one version he married and settled there. According to another, Amalia, the Queen of the Amazons, cut off his head in battle and flung it into a skin filled with blood, saying, “Satia te sanguine, quem tantum sitisti.” This second version is doubtless the milder.

      In the end Europe became the theatre of furious struggles between the black race, which came pouring out of the interior of Africa, and the Mongolian race. The happenings of those two years are best passed over in silence. The last traces of civilization vanished. For instance, the bears multiplied on Hradčany to such an extent that the last inhabitants of Prague destroyed all the bridges, even the Charles Bridge, to save the right bank of the Vltava from these bloodthirsty beasts. The population shrank to an insignificant little group; the Vyšehrad died out both on the male and female side; the championship match between the Sparta Club and the Victoria Zizkov was witnessed by only one hundred and ten people.

      On the other continents the situation was no better. North America, after the fearful ravages of the murderous struggles between the Prohibitionists and the “Wets,” had become a Japanese colony. In South America there had been by turns an Empire of Uruguay, Chili, Peru, Brandenburg and Patagonia. In Australia, an Ideal State had been formed, immediately after the downfall of England, which transformed this promising land into an uninhabited desert. In Africa over two million white men had been eaten. The negroes of the Congo basin had hurled themselves upon Europe, while the rest of Africa was in the throes of the fluctuating conflicts of its one hundred and eighty-six different Emperors, Sultans, Kings, Chiefs and Presidents.

      Such is history, you see. Each one of those hundred millions of warring pigmies had had his childhood, his loves, his plans; he was often afraid, he was frequently a hero, but usually he was tired to death and would have been glad to lie down on his bed in peace; and if he died, it was certainly against his will. And from all of this, one can take only a handful of arid events: a battle here or there, losses so and so, result this or that—and, after all, the result never brought about any real decision.

      Therefore I say: Do not rob the people of that time of their only boast—that what they went through was the Greatest War. We, however, know that in a few decades we shall succeed in arranging an even greater war, for in this respect also the human race is progressing ever upward and on.

      XXVI

      THE BATTLE OF HRADEC

      KRALOVE

      The present chronicler now appeals to August Sedlaček, Joseph Pekař, and other authorities on the writing of history, in support of the statement that a vast amount of historical knowledge can be drawn from purely local happenings. They mirror world events as in a drop of water.

      Well, then, the drop of water entitled Hradec Králové is memorable to the chronicler because he used to race about in it like a tiny organism, as an infusorian of the grammar school there, and not surprisingly thought it the universe; but enough of that.

      The Greatest War found Hradec Králové armed with only a single Karburator, and that was in the brewery still standing to this day behind the Church of the Holy Spirit, which is next to the residence of the Canons. Perhaps it was this hallowed environment which reacted on the Absolute in such a way that it began to brew a plentiful and ardently Catholic beer and thereby brought the citizens of Hradec to a condition in which the deceased Bishop Brynych would have taken sincere pleasure.

      However, Hradec Králové is too close to the railway, and so it very soon fell into the hands of the Prussians, who in their Lutheran fury destroyed the Karburator in the brewery. Nevertheless, mindful of its historical continuity, Hradec maintained an agreeable religious temperature, especially when the enlightened Bishop Linda took over the diocese. And even when the Bobinets, the Turks, and the Chinese came, Hradec did not lose its proud consciousness that (i) it had the best amateur theatre in all Eastern Bohemia; (ii) it had the tallest steeple in Eastern Bohemia; (iii) the pages of its local history contained the greatest battle in Eastern Bohemia. Heartened by these reflections, Hradec Králové withstood the most terrible trials of the Greatest War.

      When the Mandarin Empire collapsed, the city was under the government of that circumspect Burgomaster, Mr. Skocdopole. Amid the prevailing anarchy his administration was blessed with comparative peace, thanks to the wise counsels of Bishop Linda and the Worshipful City Fathers. But one fine day there came to the city a poor tailor, Hampl by name; he was, Heaven help us, a native of Hradec, but he had knocked about the world ever since childhood and had even served with the Foreign Legion in Algeria—in fact, an adventurer. He marched with Bobinet’s troops to the conquest of India, but deserted near Baghdad, and had slipped like a needle through the lines of the Bashi-Bazouks, French, Swedes and Chinese, back to his native city.

      Well, this Hampl, the little tailor, had caught a whiff of Bobinetism, and as soon as he got back to Hradec he thought of nothing but how he could seize command. Stitching away at clothes didn’t suit him any longer, thank you; so he began agitating and criticizing, saying that one thing and another was not right, that the whole City Council was under the thumb of the parsons, and what about that money in the Savings Bank, and Mr. Skocdopole was an incapable old dodderer, and what not. Wars, unfortunately, bring with them a demoralization and a weakening of all authority, and so Hampl found several followers and with their assistance founded the Social-Revolutionary Party.

      One day in June friend Hampl summoned a Popular Assembly in the Little Square, and standing on the fountain, shouted out, among other things, that the people categorically demanded that Skocdopole, that scoundrel, reactionary, and lackey of the Bishop, should resign the office of Burgomaster.

      In answer to this, Mr. Skocdopole put up posters stating that he, as the lawfully elected Burgomaster, need take orders from no one, least of all from an interloper and a deserter; that in the present times of unrest it was impossible to hold a fresh election, and that our clear-sighted citizens were well aware . . . and so forth. This was just what Hampl was waiting for to carry out his coup à la Bobinet. He came out of his house on the Little Square, waving a red flag, with two boys behind him beating drums with all their might. In this fashion he marched around the Great Square, paused a while in front of the Bishop’s palace, and then marched off with rolling drums to the field near the Orlice river called the “Little Mill.” There he stuck his standard into