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THE KING OF ALSANDER

by

JAMES ELROY FLECKER







London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Ruskin House 40 Museum Street, W.C.
1915




DEDICATION

_To_

J.N. MAVROGORDATO

           This Romance,
of which he never despaired in the Rough
      Is dedicated in the Ripe




CONTENTS



Preface

Chapter I. Blaindon

Chapter II. Alsander

Chapter III. En Pension in Alsander

Chapter IV. Introducing a good beggar and a bad King

Chapter V. Of the knighting of Norman Price

Chapter VI. Concerning Isis and Aphrodite:
with a digression on the shocking
treatment the latter's followers receive
from the hands of English novelists

Chapter VII. The Society for the Advancement of Alsander

Chapter VIII. How Norman failed to pass
a qualifying examination for the post
of King of Alsander, and was whipped:
together with a digression on the excellence
of whipping

Chapter IX. The Consul

Chapter X. Contains the President's tale
and a debate on the advantages of murder

Chapter XI. A Visit to Vorza

Chapter XII. In which the Beetles crawl

Chapter XIII. Re-Coronation

Chapter XIV. Princess Ianthe

Chapter XV. Peronella and the Priest

Chapter XVI. The Counter Conspiracy: an
episode in the style of the worst writers

Chapter XVII. Battle

Chapter XVIII. The Poet visits Blaindon
once more, and takes John Gaffekin to
the seashore, where a miracle occurs



PREFACE

_Here is a tale all romance--a tale such as only a Poet can write for
you, O appreciative and generous Public--a tale of madmen, kings,
scholars, grocers, consuls, and Jews: a tale with two heroines, both of
an extreme and indescribable beauty: a tale of the South and of
sunshine, wherein will be found disguises, mysteries, conspiracies,
fights, at least_ one _good whipping, and plenty of blood and love and
absurdity: a very old sort of tale: a tale as joyously improbable as
life itself._

_But if I know you aright, appreciative and generous Public, you look
for more than this in these tragic days of social unrest, and you will
be most dissatisfied with my efforts to please you. For you a king is a
shadow, a madman a person to be shut up, a scholar a fool, a grocer a
tradesman, a consul an inferior grade of diplomatic officer, and a Jew a
Jew. You will demand to know what panacea is preached in this novel as a
sovran remedy for the dismal state of affairs in England. With what hope
do I delude the groaning poor: with what sarcasm insult the insulting
rich? What is the meaning of my apparent joyousness? What has grim
iron-banging England to do with sunshine, dancing, adventure and, above
all, with Poets?_

_In support of my reputation let me hasten to observe that in my efforts
to please a generous and appreciative Public I have not failed to insert
several passages of a high moral tone. Grave matters of ethics are
frequently discussed in the course of my story, and the earnest inquirer
may learn much from this book concerning the aim, purpose and origin of
his existence. To Government and its problems I have given particular
attention, and the observant reader may draw from these subtle pages a
complete theory of the Fallacy of the Picturesque. Only I implore the
public to forgive the Poet his proverbial licence, to remember that
truth is still truth, though clad in harlequin raiment, and thought
still thought, though hinted and not explained._

_Farewell, then, my King of Alsander. Ride out into the world and
conquer. Behind you--a merry and a mocking phantom--my youth rides out
for ever!_

_Beyrouth,_ _Syria_, 1913.






THE KING OF ALSANDER




CHAPTER I

BLAINDON

     Would that I had a little cot
         Beside a little hill,
     In some romantic English spot
     Where summer's not so very hot
         And winter not too chill.

                         _J. Williams_


The writer of these simple lines, now unhappily dead, was a man of the
soil, whose sweet native note had never been troubled by the sinister
depravities, the heartless affectations of urban existence; and I
believe myself that his pathetic and modest ideal could have been
actually realized had he inhabited, as perhaps he did, the peaceful
village of Blaindon. This secluded hamlet lies some ten miles from the
sea, in an undulating, but not terrible, country--a land of woodland and
meadow, of buttercup and daisy, of tiny streams and verdant dells. At
evening the scene is more tranquil than ever, and the old church spire,
standing sentinel above the cold ploughlands, presents a curiously sad
appearance, tinged as it is with the melancholy of years. However at
the time when this story opens it was not evening, but afternoon, and a
very hot one. The horse in his freedom, like the pig in his confinement,
lolled upon the ground, and the thatches rustled with the melodies of
sleep.

Yes, let us look beneath those thatches and consider the village yokel
for a moment, as with mouth agape and heavy eyelids he takes his meed of
repose:

    Nec partem solido demere de die
    Spernit; nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
    Stratus; nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.

But if, here in England, he has no arbute tree, or sacred fountain,
whereby to stretch his large, unwieldy limbs, there awaits him,
nevertheless, the fireside in winter, the straw of the stable loft for
hotter days. Ensconced beneath such lowly roofs as those of little
Blaindon, many a hundred sons of toil have been born, been married and
been finally dead, after a life spent in working nobly for an ignoble
pittance, far away from the wearisome strife of new ideas and
endeavours, and all the rumbling of the world's chariot wheels.

I have carefully examined the records in the parish church, thinking
that they might interest all those who still have faith in the sterling
qualities and bulldog tenacity of our British yeoman class. I discovered
the interesting fact that only a fifth of the population die before the
age of sixty-five; and that the same families seem to have lived here in
a state of ceaseless intermarriage for century after century. The
_Weolkeethings_ of Saxon days, the _Weilcans_ of the Normans, who are they
but the honest Wilkinses round the corner? No great calamities have
occurred at Blaindon except an occasional plague; no stirring battles
have there been fought. The place seems to have been forgotten or
overlooked during the Civil Wars. (However, an inhabitant of the town
fought at Balaclava, but not in the Heavy Brigade.) Of the prevailing
insanity, I need say nothing; this is the inheritance of all rustic
communities. That the people of Blaindon are happy and appreciate their
charming home they have proved in the clearest possible way. They have
never left it.

Would that he who looks over the church-yard wall down at the tidy rows
of one-room cottages, whose gardens blaze with nasturtia and red
daisies, could say that no jarring note, no trace of a restless
individuality, marred the enchanting scene. But, alas! every traveller
is bound to remark a peculiarly ugly two-storied erection, whose
rectangular bricks render it at once an eyesore and a solecism. This
building used to be called by the inhabitants Price's bongmash: but the
name on its sign was Bon Marche (French for Good Market). Mr Price's
business was at the time this story opens the most flourishing concern
in Blaindon. It was carried on chiefly by the indomitable energy of the
younger Price; his father now slept most of the day, not so much on
account of his advancing years as because he was very tired and a heavy
eater. He could trust his son completely. Young Norman Price was one of
the most envied personages in Blaindon. He was only nineteen; a handsome
and strong young man, and the face he showed a customer wore no servile
frock-coated smirk, but a laugh of real pleasure at being able to supply
the needs of the community. Nearly everything was on sale in his
shop--all groceries, also cloth, garden seeds, papers, books (the least
flourishing part of the trade), and tobacco. Yet his store did not look
at all like other village stores where everything is bought in dirty
pennyworths. It was well arranged, and the goods were displayed to good
account, more after the tradition, I fear, of American vulgarity than of
British honesty. Worse still, Price had actually taken upon himself to
corrupt the adorable simplicity of the villagers and to turn their
thoughts to the enervating fashions of great cities. If a young villager
came in who liked to be thought rather a nut and who fancied him self in
a new waistcoat, the young grocer would give him a little elegant and
expensive tobacco to try, explain that he smoked it himself, and that
one smoked less of it than of the commoner sorts, so it came no dearer
after all. He utterly refused to sell cigarettes at ten for a penny, or
assorted sweets at three half-pence the quarter. It soon became a mark
of distinction to be a customer at the Bon Marche, and the firm got a
reputation for selling "sound articles and no trash."

I have not mentioned, however, the object that would probably most
astonish a gentleman of culture on entering the shop. On the wall hung a
large and fine reproduction of Holbein's portrait of Georg Gisze. The
young merchant, robed in delicate silk and velvet, and surrounded by
keys, quadrants, scissors, maps, and ledgers, was obviously meant to be
the tutelary deity of the house; indeed, as a set-off to the flowers
that stand upon the painted table, Norman had placed a large bowl of
carnations on his counter.

The picture had been a present from his friend, John Gaffekin. If young
Price appears in this story so strangely different from his father and
from the other villagers of Blaindon, and indeed from all grocers
whatsoever, we need not accept the explanation of some, that his father
was "a deeper man than you'd think" or the assertion of others that he
"got it from his mother," a lady of whom he had never seen so much as a
photograph. The lad's singularity was much more likely due to this
curious and close intimacy with a gentleman: and I hope that those who
read this history will not close the book without a sigh of remonstrance
against all those who insist on giving the lower classes thoughts above
their station. John Gaffekin lived with his widowed mother in the
Elizabethan Blaindon Hall, a typical old country house standing just
outside the village on a plot of park. The old lady was infirm, and in
order that he might attend to his mother, and also avoid drawing on a by
no means unlimited income, John had never gone to school. He had taken
some lessons from the Vicar, who had been "a fine classic in his day,"
and as he naturally loved books and was of a quiet disposition he became
so proficient that the Reverend George Apple warmly urged him to try for
a scholarship at Oxford. For a long time he had refused even to attempt
this feat. He declared that he could not leave his mother. He feared he
could not win the scholarship. But the old lady joined her importunities
to those of the Vicar. "They had not enough money to go on for ever,"
she maintained, "and if John had a degree he would always be able to
turn his hand to something at a pinch, and earn his daily bread." Very
much at a pinch, had the dear old lady but known it!

"I can easily get some one to look after me," said the old lady, "and
it is very wrong of me not to have sent you away before. You are getting
buried in this stupid place, and too dreamy altogether, with no one here
but that grocer friend of yours to talk to."

"I wish Norman could come with me to Oxford," said John. "It's wrong of
me to leave him."

"My dear son, I can't have you consorting with that sort of person all
your life."

"I do hate that subject," protested John.

"My dear boy, you'll find the wisdom of my words when you've seen a
little more of the world," said Mrs Gaffekin.

"Besides," interposed the Vicar, tactfully, "College terms only account
for half the year. We shall see plenty of you down here."

So John got his scholarship and went to Oxford, and Norman found himself
rather lonely. One day, three years ago, John had begun to talk to him
when he came into Blaindon to buy tobacco, and since then they had been
continuously together, walking, fishing and shooting all over the place,
and conversing on high and learned topics. That is why Norman was an
educated man after a certain curious fashion. He was, however, no mere
counterpart of his friend. Left to himself, Norman had fire and
intelligence enough to make his mark. But the sudden wide prospect
opened up by all that golden world all those enchanted gardens that lie
hid between pasteboard covers--had dazzled his eyes and made him a most
exceptional person. He had plunged into everything, learnt Latin and
French, attempted Greek. There were very few books that he read
carefully; hardly one would he read twice. "There are so many more to
read," he used to say. No one could be less of a scholar, and the fine
points of characterization, the delicate shades of metre and language,
lay beyond his sphere. But he loved all the books that are not generally
read; he could feel that such books were peculiarly his own property or
his own discovery, and a habit of always reading books that no one else
has read is not a bad guide to literature. All the works that glow with
dark frenzy, or with diabolical Rembrandt fires, whose authors died
nameless deaths or were burnt for magic, all the fantastic tales about
new countries on the other side of mountains, or happy islands in
limitless seas, all stories of the moon or stars were his especial
delight and continual joy. For he loved the _Monk_ of Monk Lewis, and
this is a rare book to find, and _Vathek_, and _William Jordan, Junior,_
greatest of unread modern books; and he sang to himself the _Gods of
Pegana_ and dreamed over its ethereal pictures, and he loved the new
Irish tales. And he adored that mysterious wonder-story of the _Golden
Ass_, and its glittering precious style; and he read Richepin's tales
of the Roman decadence. And he never wearied of James Thompson (not of
the "Seasons"), or of Baudelaire, or of the great travel poems of the
world from the _Odyssey_ to _Waring_.

And here, again, I must point the moral. The egregious bad taste of this
young man was almost certainly the outcome of his low antecedents. Stale
romanticism is embedded in the poorer classes. He liked his literature
garish and vivid, and with his insistent passion for all the decadent
stuff that used to be in favour ten or twelve years ago, he could never
appreciate that really noble modern literature, much of it dramatic,
which tackles so fearlessly and with such psychological insight the
problems of our industrial age. In fact, he used to say that it might be
damned good, but it was damned boring. Such is the obtuseness of the
Philistine. He was, moreover, no critic, as you may well opine; he had
not the fine taste of his friend, but he fell the more readily under the
spell and domination of strange books; he was a dreamer, and entertained
ideas of his own, which he would not have dared impart. Yet this dreamer
was a man of business, and employed all the resources of a crude but
powerful imagination in the disposal of his wares. How, then, could he
help feeling a little weary of Blaindon, especially when John was away
at Oxford? And on this afternoon, on which I have promised that my story
should begin, he was sitting rather disconsolate in his shop, drowning
care in the delights of Conrad's _Youth_.

He had hardly been interrupted the whole day, except for lunch. The
sexton had been in for some twine, and the Vicar's daughter for some
pink wool "to match the merino mother bought yesterday." She was a
pretty girl, and Price almost aspired to marry her. Had he only known
it, the poverty-stricken Mr Apple would have been only too glad, and I
do not think the young lady was at all averse to Norman, whose beauty of
person and brilliance of mind made one forget his unfortunate connexion
with trade.

At about half-past three he shut the book with a bang, heaved a
disconsolate sigh to think that the glorious tales were over, and
stretched himself. Then he slid off the counter and looked down the high
road to see if anything stirred thereon. Straight, broad, white,
glaring, over the sleeping downs lay the deserted road that led to
Blaindon from the unseen Ocean, fit for the trampling of armies and the
shouting of men, a road for caravans and caravans of merchandise to
traverse with bells a-jangle while wagoners told the tales of wagoners
high perched