The World Set Free, H. G. Wells [ereader for textbooks .txt] 📗

inattentive. Never at any time did he betray a doubt that all this chaotic conflict would end. No nurse during a nursery uproar was ever so certain of the inevitable ultimate peace. From being treated as an amiable dreamer he came by insensible degrees to be regarded as an extravagant possibility. Then he began to seem even practicable. The people who listened to him in 1958 with a smiling impatience, were eager before 1959 was four months old to know just exactly what he thought might be done. He answered with the patience of a philosopher and the lucidity of a Frenchman. He began to receive responses of a more and 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 that would affect the tone of the assembly. He might have been a courier in advance rather than the originator of the gathering. And then there arrived, some by the cable, most by aeroplane, a few in other fashions, the men who had been called together to confer upon the state of the world. It was to be a conference without a name. Nine monarchs, the presidents of four Republics, a number of ministers and ambassadors, powerful journalists, and suchlike prominent and influential men, took part in it. There were even scientific men; and that world-famous old man, Holsten, came with the others to contribute his amateur statecraft to the desperate problem of the age. Only Leblanc would have dared so to summon figure heads and powers and intelligence, or have had the courage to hope for their agreement.⁠ ⁠… § II

And one at least of those who were called to this conference of governments came to it on foot. This was King Egbert, the young king of the most venerable kingdom in Europe. He was a rebel, and had always been of deliberate choice a rebel against the magnificence of his position. He affected long pedestrian tours and a disposition to sleep in the open air. He came now over the Pass of Sta. Maria Maggiore and by boat up the lake to Brissago; thence he walked up the mountain, a pleasant path set with oaks and sweet 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 anticipated great influence in this new position, and after some years he was still only beginning to apprehend how largely his function was to listen. Originally he had been something of a thinker upon international politics, an authority upon tariffs and strategy, and a valued contributor to various of the higher organs of public opinion, but the atomic bombs had taken him by surprise and he had still to recover completely from his pre-atomic opinions and the silencing effect of those sustained explosives.

The king’s freedom from the trammels of etiquette was very complete. In theory⁠—and he abounded in theory⁠—his manners were purely democratic. 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 bottles of beer. The king had never, as a matter of fact, carried anything for himself in his life, and he had never noted that he did not do so.

“We will have nobody with us,” he said, “at all. We will be perfectly simple.”

So Firmin carried the beer.

As they walked up⁠—it was the king made the pace rather than Firmin⁠—they talked of the conference before them, and Firmin, with a certain want of assurance that would have surprised him in himself in the days 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 advisable to set up some sort of general control for International affairs⁠—a sort of Hague Court with extended powers⁠—that is no reason whatever for losing sight of the principles of national and imperial autonomy.”

“Firmin,” said the king, “I am going to set my brother kings a good example.”

Firmin intimated a curiosity that veiled a dread.

“By chucking all that nonsense,” said the king.

He quickened his pace as Firmin, who was already a little out of breath, betrayed a disposition to reply.

“I am going to chuck all that nonsense,” said the king, as Firmin prepared to speak. “I am going to fling my royalty and empire on the table⁠—and declare at once I don’t mean to haggle. It’s haggling⁠—about rights⁠—has been the devil in human affairs, for⁠—always. I am going to stop this nonsense.”

Firmin halted abruptly. “But, sir!” he cried.

The king stopped six yards ahead of him and looked back at his adviser’s perspiring visage.

“Do you really think, Firmin, that I am here as⁠—as an infernal politician to put my crown and my flag and my claims