556
PARTISAN REVIEW
At that point the King beat a hasty retreat.
Waving his hands, with a gesture of greatest panic, Gnulo
turned tail and without further ado made his exit. ... He ran to the
doors, so as to be further away from this Archkingdom. The guests
saw that the King was escaping them ... a minute more and the
King will escape! And they looked on in stupefaction, insofar as one
could not restrain a King. . . . Who would dare to restrain a King
by force?
, 'After him," bellowed the elder. "After him!"
A cold night wind fanned the cheeks of the dignitaries when
they came out onto the square before the palace. The King was flee–
ing down the middle of the street, and at a distance of a dozen or so
paces the Chancellor rushed after, the banquet and the ball rushed
after. And here the archgenius of this archstatesman again man–
ifested itself in all its archstrength-for THE DISGRACEFUL
FLIGHT OF THE KING BECAME SOME KIND OF ATTACK
and it was not known if THE KING WAS FLEEING or if also
THE KING WAS RUSHING FORWARD AT THE HEAD OF
THE BANQUET! Oh, the rushing and frenziedly rustling sashes
and decorations of ambassadors, the purple raiments of the bishops,
the frocks of the ministers and the ball dresses, oh, the gallop, the
archgallop of so many potentates! The eyes of the populace had
never seen anything like it. Magnates, possessors of immense land
holdings, the descendants of the greatest families galloped alongside
officers of the general staff, whose gallop escorted the gallop of all–
powerful ministers, the stampede of marshalls, chamberlains, the
gallop of stampeded famous ladies of court! Oh, the stampede, the
archstampede of the marshalls, the chamberlains, the stampede of
the ministers, the gallop of the ambassadors into the darkness of
night, into the lantern light, under the vault of the heavens! The
cannons resounded in the palace. And the King charged!
"Forward!" he cried. "Forward!"
And archcharging at the head of his archtroops, the archking
thundered into the darkness of night!
Translated from the Polish
by
Beth Holmgren
