On the same evening, as a sign of protest, the royal Camelots, backed by the Catholic people of the Saint-Germain district, took control of the Left Bank of the Seine from the Place des Invalides to the Champ de Mars, and thus proclaimed the restoration of the monarchy.
Taken off guard by the rapid series of events and sensing their properties at risk, the Anglo-American population of the central districts felt it prudent to take a firm stand against them and implement security measures. An unprecedented meeting of gentlemen was called in the Opera House to discuss the events of September 8. It was unanimously decided that, in self-defense against the Bolshevik districts of Paris, the districts inhabited by the English-speaking populations would be declared an autonomous Anglo-American Territory while the plague ran its course. An armed youth militia was to erect barricades around the new territory and defend it in the event of an invasion from one of the renegade districts.
The issue of the native French population inhabiting the newly declared territory was a source of lively discussion. A segment of the gentlemen firmly insisted on the displacement of non-English-speaking factions. The majority of votes, however, were received by the levelheaded proposition of Ramsey Marlington, who forwarded the motion of using the French residents of the territory – after their wholesale disarmament – for service duties, recruiting indispensable hotel and private servants from their ranks. The only ones freed from these duties, according to Mr. Marlington’s scheme, were to be the shopkeepers and bistro owners, as their establishments served the public, as well as those Frenchmen whose yearly salaries exceeded one hundred thousand francs.
Ramsey Marlington’s recommendation was implemented. The French populations of the central districts, long accustomed to living off tips from the British and American tourists, offered no resistance to Marlington’s scheme and reconciled themselves to their new roles quite amicably, thus sparing the new territory’s government any unforeseen complications.
This first gathering established a Council of Commissioners for the territory’s board of directors, composed of twelve outstanding financiers: six Englishmen and six Americans. The American Express Company building was temporarily put at the disposal of the provisional government.
David Lingslay was among the six American potentates selected in the voting for the territory’s Council of Commissioners. The weight of his name and his social standing forbade him from declining this honor, though state and administrative matters clearly clashed with the overall canvas of his activities and affairs, and thus he resolved to devote as little time and attention to them as possible.
On the day in question, having returned to his hotel at five o’clock in the morning, filled with the most melodious strains of a passionate storm, whose lightning plowed him with deep and insatiable urges to sample life’s delicacies, and prematurely awoken by the alarm of civic duty, David Lingslay felt the full burden of his social role more than ever before, and in a particularly sour mood he slowly went about dressing himself in his tailor-made suit.
He was just finishing shaving in front of the mirror when a knock announced the entrance of a slim, ever-beaming bellboy, the onetime head secretary of a great insurance concern, which had lost its raison d’être in the new order. He reported that two men desired to see David Lingslay about an important matter.
On any other day Lingslay would have suspected some tedious business and would no doubt have declared himself absent. Today, however, he decided to drain the cup of civic responsibility to the dregs, and with a resigned gesture he requested they be shown into the salon.
After spending a long minute knotting his tie, David Lingslay appeared in the doorway to the salon. Rising from their armchairs to meet him were Rabbi Eliezer ben Zvi and an older, corpulent gentleman in American eyeglasses.
IV
Bells rang from Sacré-Coeur.
From Saint-Pierre, from Sainte-Clotilde, from Saint-Louis, from the small, scattered churches of the Saint-Germain district, Catholic Paris replied with a rueful clanging of bells.
The dull, weepy bells fought it out over the city with their fists of lead in their hollow bronze chests, and the church interiors responded with the din of hands convulsively wringing and a bitter, pious murmur. The adoration of the Sacrament continued incessantly, administered by waxen priests swaying from exhaustion.
In the Orthodox church of the Passy district, the metropolitan in gilded robes read from the Gospels in a rich, sonorous voice, and all the bells rang like it was Easter Sunday.
Paris again burst open along the wide seam of the Seine, where it had once been hastily stitched with the white threads of bridges.
On either side of the Passy Bridge flags fluttered from a lamppost: the tricolor flag of the Russian Empire and the flag of the Bourbons, white with gold lilies – the provisional border between two monarchies.
Four boys with rifles slung over their shoulders – two on each side of the river – marched to the middle of the empty bridge and back again, their strides resonant and measured. On the caps of the boys in the long green shirts glistened tsarist eagles pulled out of mothballs and rubbed in chalk. They stared down on the meager, blackened lilies of the juvenile Royal Camelots.
Vasya Krestovnikov impatiently propped his rifle on his shoulder. The gun was heavy, it hurt his arm. Maybe let it drop? No, that won’t do. Vasya paced the bridge, a spring in his step, a serious expression fixed to his chubby red face.
Nonetheless, he decided to let it drop. He only needed to make it to the middle span, and there he could set his rifle on the ground and rest on the barrel without any loss of respect. It made him look serious, even striking. He’d seen pictures of soldiers on sentry duty in that very pose.
So Vasya, unflappable and indifferent, leaned picturesquely on the barrel of his rifle, casually sticking his right foot forward, its leather boot glistening like a samovar.
But whenever his eyes met those of the navy-blue sentinel across the way, Vasya was unable to resist, and an impish smile cracked through his mask of solemnity. How comicaclass="underline" just yesterday they were pals, playing blackjack under their desks and tennis after school, and today they were guards for two separate states on either side of the bridge – not hostile, even allied to some extent, but still separate.
Following Vasya’s example, the trim navy-blue Camelot dropped his rifle, too, and leaned nonchalantly on the barrel. He’d have liked to smoke a cigarette, but duty first!
The two sixteen-year-old boys, leaning on their guns, their backs to the balustrades, let their eyes wander out into space: two tin soldiers on a cardboard bridge with a marvelous paper backdrop, so much like the Paris of adults.
“What was that racket and shooting I heard over there yesterday?” the navy-blue Camelot asked, trying to enjoy a little soldier talk.
“Ah, nothing, no big deal,” Vasya replied in French, his tone emphasizing that it was hardly worth mentioning. “Just creaming a couple of Jews. They gobble our bread and spread the plague while they’re at it.”
Vasya checked around to see if anyone was looking, then dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out a huge, gold cigarette case. Who could resist a bit of bragging to a friend?
“See what I swiped off one of them? I bet he nabbed it in Russia, state security guy, a Chekist. Holds twenty cigarettes.”
And noting a contemptuous sneer on the corner of his friend’s lips, he hastily added:
“You have no idea what crooks they are. Yesterday my mom spotted her own necklace on a Jewess. They stole it from a safe in Moscow. Or they prefer to use the word ‘confiscated.’ They ‘confiscated’ all my mom’s jewelry that way. All she’s got left is her wedding ring.”