Also present and accounted for as a fully-accredited member, in fact the Doyen or senior member, of the Corps Diplomatique, was the Nobly Born Legate of the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta; rumor, painted full of tongues, from time to time, circulated in Bella to the effect that the Knights were indeed no longer sovereign in Malta; but the Minister of Foreign Affairs had a rather large back-log of work, and no time to pay attention to rumors. “Where are all these places in Southern America?” once he asked Dr. Eszterhazy, distractedly. “What is the Argentine Republic? Once there was a Confederation of the La Plata; why can I not find it on my map? The Emperors of Hayti and Brazil do not answer their mails. And — is the Confederation of the La Plata the same as the Confederate States, or is it not? Do we recognize these American States, or do we recognize only some of them, and if so, which? What and where is the Republic of Texas? Things were simpler before Bonaparte, don’t you agree, Engelbert?” Dr. Engelbert Eszterhazy said that things were seldom simple, and that this was no exception.
“However,” said he, “we must take things as we find them. I shall send you a minute on the American question. [“Oh, thank you, Engelbert!”] — meanwhile, should we not reply to the request from the Republic of San Marino to lower the excise tax on pasta ... or is it pizza?”
“I don’t know, it is so long since I have studied Dante,” said the Foreign Minister, dolefully.
It was on this occasion — i.e., that of the levee — that His Young Highness the Crown Princeling, in reply to the question if he thought that Prester John had lived in Abyssinia, revealed that he had never heard of Prester John. Or, for that matter, Abyssinia.
“Is that the same as Absentia?”
“Oh, your Young Highness! Surely you will recall [softo voce] that Prester John was a mysterious and possibly mythical king who, it was hoped, would save the world from the Mongol Hordes? There is no such place as Absentia!”
“The which from what? Nonsense. Course there is. Remember What’s- his-name, who fiddled the regimental accounts and fled the country? Was tried in Absentia, wasn’t he?”
“Oh Your Young Highness! The Mongol hordes'. Genghis Khan and Tamurlane! Towers of skulls, you know.”
“Anything like the Tunnel of Love?”
A nearby and newly-arrived Emissary (from the Ty-coon of Cho-sen, or some such place and title), fortunately at that moment asked if he might hear some example of the native music of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania. Dr. Eszterhazy’s tenor immediately began the chorus to a popular tune of which the Noble Infant was sure to have heard; and in a moment the Crown Princeling’s baritone enthusiastically joined in with Port, port, port, and port, port, port, oh Heigh-ho andjolly-oh,
Oh, port, port, port!
If the Congress of Europe could only be run along the lines of a glee club, then Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania would be sure to prosper.
Meanwhile, it was certainly time for Eszterhazy to have his holidays — or, as the Americans would call them, vacation.
The Heir considered the boars of Greater Byzantia to be runty, and there were not enough stags; also the topography was not favorable to cavalry charges; and these opinions he carried over to the adjacent regions of the Hyperthracian Mountains. The Heir went there but seldom. And as there was a paucity of light theaters, cabarets, race-tracks, and music halls, the Crown Princeling never went there at all. But every seven and a half years, come drought or flood or whatever, the King and Emperor went there; and on one such visitation, years ago, Eszterhazy had been an equerry, Yohan Popoff a prince-host: and so an odd sort of friendship had developed.
And so, soon after van der Clooster had departed for Zagreb, Dr. Eszterhazy put aside steam engineering for a dual-purpose visit to the Hyperthracian Hills.
“And what shall ye do with these wee bits of prettystone ye’ve gathered?” asked Prince Popoff, at table. His table.
“Set some of them, anyway, in brooches, and give them to my aunties,” said Eszterhazy, promptly — not wishing to bother his host with boring descriptions of trituration, spectroscopic analysis, and the like —
— and besides, some of them he did propose to set in brooches and give them to his aunties.
“Very good,” said his host. “Then ye’ll not be digging great holes and corrupting my peoples with moneys. Goats fall into great holes sometimes, if they be new great holes. And about the only times my peoples see moneys is when some strangers have to pause at the cross-stop and pay the imposts for their goods and gear. Which ain’t often, as there are easier ways to get out of Austria than this way. To get into Austria, for that matter.
Eszterhazy was not thinking much about Austria, save that he knew that the forthcoming Congress of Europe was to be held in Vienna. Mostly he was thinking how pleasant it was to be in this mountain fastness so far from Bella (and from Vienna, too, for that matter) and its cares, and how restful and trustworthy not-so-old Popoff was, and how rustic and pleasant he looked. Then at once there entered someone new to him, an old woman who did not think so. At all.
“You have no face, you have no stomach,” she squawled at the Prince. “Look, look! crumbs in your moustache, wudkey on your breath, wine on your waistcoat, your hair looks like badly stooked straw, last week’s shirt;
what an example for a prince of the mountains and a descendant of His Reverence — / don’t know — my life has been wasted, poured out like wash- water; you might as well have grown up in the stye, sucking the grey sow’s teat; where is the hot bread for the zoop, the hot bread for the zoop? Holy Souls in Purgatory, is no one at work in the kitchen?” Never ceasing to scold and shriek, she hustled out; old and scrannel, not in the least picturesque, boney and rat-toothed, leaving behind her the echo of her voice — like a badly-worn cylinder for one of the new talking-machines: Edisonola, it was called — and an odor of onions and armpits.