Stratman bowed to the prolonged ovation, and he returned to his chair.
Ingrid Påhl, who was to introduce Andrew Craig, last of the laureates to be honoured, had already taken the empty seat beside Jacobsson, and, tugging nervously at the corsage on her gown, she despaired of what to say.
‘What has happened to him?’ she asked. ‘It will be a disgrace. What excuse can I make to His Majesty, the audience?’
‘You’ll have to-’ Jacobsson had begun to reply, when suddenly an outburst of applause, louder and louder, from the audience, crashed against the stage. Jacobsson saw all eyes on the platform directed to the rear, and he swung around.
Andrew Craig, resplendent in full dress, wing collar and white bow tie and patent-leather pumps, was marching slowly down the centre steps of the stage to his place in the right front row.
Ingrid Påhl, pale with relief, leaped up to shake his hand and give him the seat so long vacant, and Craig bowed to her and settled next to Jacobsson.
Immediately, Ingrid Påhl walked to the lectern and began to deliver in Swedish the speech on Craig and his writings that she had memorized. As she spoke to the audience, Craig tried to pretend attention, but he spoke, too, in an undertone from the corner of his mouth to Jacobsson.
‘Forgive me, I want to apologize,’ he said. ‘I was unavoidably detained-no discourtesy-there was some-some trouble-but it is solved. Perhaps one day I will be able to explain it to you.’
Jacobsson stared at Craig with amazement, and then deep curiosity, wondering what had detained him, and Krantz, too, Krantz across the aisle, and it occurred to Jacobsson, with not a little sadness, that no matter what he heard and saw and read, his precious Notes would never be complete. But then, he consoled himself, no record of men can ever be complete, for what is inside them, the bottomless mysteries, are not meant to be known. And, at least, at least, he told himself with relief, Craig was here, and the Notes would not be forced to record a scandal. In all, in summary, it would be a quiet and pleasant account he could make of one more placid Nobel Week.
Craig tried to listen to Ingrid Påhl, but understanding no word of Swedish, again his attention drifted. He enjoyed the gala stage, and he oriented himself to the elegant audience, and he desperately tried to remember the protocol that must momentarily be observed.
In a loge high above, his eyes caught Lilly Hedqvist, Gunnar Gottling, and Emily, his own Emily, entering, standing, staring proudly down at him. And he smiled up towards them.
He remembered how he and Emily had left his bed, and dressed, and hurried downstairs to urge the taxi to speed them to Concert Hall. Backstage, Lilly and Gottling had been waiting for his cryptic reassurance that everything had worked out all right-and then Lilly, with her own news that Daranyi was watching television in the hospital and would be home tomorrow, and Gottling, with his news that ‘that flat-assed broad, Sue Wiley, had gotten suspicious, and is nosing around for the story, but I warned her if she made any more trouble, I’d bust into her room and deflower her, so I think she’ll behave.’
And as they had waited for Stratman’s speech to end, listening backstage, Craig had taken Emily’s hand, knowing that she had given herself to him for life, knowing that this life with her would not always be easy or uncomplicated, yet knowing, even as he left her to march into the glare of the stage, that it would work, because Humpty Dumpty had been put together again.
With a start, hearing his name and himself addressed, he realized that Ingrid Påhl had completed her speech in Swedish and was now speaking to him, briefly, in English, informing him of why he had been honoured this night. And then this was done, and she advanced towards him, hand outstretched, a smile wreathing her face, and he was on his feet, accepting her hand, as the audience applauded.
She guided him now along the train of carpet to the railing and stairs that led down from the centre stage. And there she remained, while he descended the stairs to the King who waited to shake his hand. They met again, clasped hands warmly.
‘I congratulate you, Mr. Craig,’ said the King. He handed Craig a large tooled-calf portfolio. ‘Your citation-diploma,’ said the monarch. ‘And in this leather box, the gold medallion. Have a look at it.’ Craig accepted the box and opened it, and the medallion, bearing two classical figures, one with a lyre, sparkled, and he enjoyed it.
‘Finally,’ the King was saying, ‘the envelope with the prize cheque, you may pick up in the morning. Once more, I congratulate you, Mr. Craig.’ The ruler’s eyes twinkled. ‘And do not forget you have promised me your next work of fiction when it is done.’
Craig smiled. ‘That will be sooner than you think, Your Majesty, and thank you.’
He almost forgot, so many eyes upon him, and then he remembered what was expected. Bowing, he backed off from the King, and moving sideways but still facing the King and somehow Emily, he went backwards up the steps to his chair, as the audience rose en masse and clapped.
Craig handed his three awards to Jacobsson, and then, slowly, thoughtfully, he made his way to the lectern.
After applause overwhelmed him once more, a silence fell. He had no speech, but glancing up at the loge, he knew what he must say.
‘Your Royal Highnesses, ladies and gentlemen. On this most memorable day of my thirty-nine years on earth, I do not wish to speak of creativity, of man the creator or man the politican, but rather, of man the individual. Not many years ago, a great countryman of mine, in my field, Mr. William Faulkner, spoke to you about the immortality of man, because man has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion, sacrifice, endurance. I wish to address you tonight on another factor of man-the obligation of man to his time on earth.’
He paused, thinking about it, and realized that he was not speaking to the audience at all, not to these two thousand nor the thousands who were watching television, not to the millions who might ever read his words. He was speaking to himself, clarifying it all for himself, himself and Emily who were one, and thus, perhaps, secondarily to all humankind.
In each one of us, he reflected to himself in these fleeting moments, there were, like unused muscles and organs, resources of the spirit-courage and energy and responsibility-never employed in our time in the world. The blessed one was he who, confronted with a crisis in his life (as was all humanity this day), was driven to call upon these resources, to use them to survive, even triumph, over life itself. One so challenged and so triumphant had won the only prize that counted-the prize of the Maker of the spirit, the rebirth of a withering soul and, as such, a Homeric victory over life’s disasters. In a lesser way, he had been so challenged, and had discovered the resources he had not known that he possessed, and was therefore, now at last, an entire man. This, indeed, was his prize. He wondered if all the others, before him, everywhere, could understand this victory and its honour. He must make them understand it. They must know the supreme value of challenge, and the eternal necessity to meet it as an individual and grow to fullest life.
‘This is the foremost of earthly honours that you have offered me,’ he found himself saying aloud. ‘I am moved and grateful beyond inadequate words. But I believe Alfred Nobel would have understood what I will say next. It is this-that all man’s honours to man are small beside the greatest prize to which he may and must aspire-the finding of his soul, his spirit, his divine strength and worth-the knowledge that he can and must live in freedom and dignity-the final realization that life is not a daily dying, not a pointless end, not an ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust, but a soaring and blinding gift snatched from eternity. The ultimate prize is to know that each new day’s challenge is meaningful and offered for use, that it must be taken to the bosom, and it must be used-and to know this, to understand this, is the one prize worthy as man’s goal and all mankind’s summit.’