After the ceremony the laureates may, before leaving the assembly hall, deliver their medals and diplomas to the head attendant, who brought them into the hands of H.M. the King and who will afterwards bring them to the City Hall, where they are to be exhibited during the evening. At the conclusion of the Ceremony, cars will be in waiting to convey the laureates and their families to the farewell banquet in the City Hall.’
Having finished the official announcement uninterrupted, Jacobsson returned the duplicated schedule to his manila folder. From the pitcher before him, he poured a glass of water, drank, then set down the glass.
‘Now, if you have any questions concerning the afternoon Ceremony at Concert Hall-?’
A hand went up, and Jacobsson acknowledged it.
‘Will the proceedings be televised?’
‘Yes,’ said Jacobsson, unhappily, for he remembered better days and felt the modern monstrosity of the camera as intrusive as a circus act. ‘This is an innovation begun by the Swedish Broadcasting Company in 1957. The entire Ceremony will be shown on government television.’
Another hand went up. ‘How many people have been invited to attend the Ceremony? To whom were the invitations sent?’
Jacobsson took another sip of water. ‘Besides His Royal Highness the King and his family, the laureates and their families, members of the Nobel academies and committees and their families, winners in previous years, invitations have been posted to members of the diplomatic corps-with priority to those nations represented this afternoon by prize-winners-and to accredited members of the press. That is the limit of the invitations. The general public is allowed to apply for tickets to extra seats on a first come, first served basis. By five o’clock this afternoon, there will be approximately twenty-one hundred persons in the assembly or auditorium of Concert Hall.’
Sue Wiley was standing, one arm half lifted, and Jacobsson nodded in her direction and braced himself for a livelier question. He was not disappointed.
‘Count Jacobsson,’ said Miss Wiley, ‘this is my first visit to a Nobel Ceremony. I am told, by those who have previously attended, that the occasion is always impressive but very stuffy and exact. Doesn’t anything exciting ever happen?’ A titter went through the conference room, and Sue Wiley smiled to those around her, and then added, ‘I mean, are there any embarrassing moments or any blunders or anything like that?’
Everyone waited now upon Jacobsson’s reaction, and he, eager to have the friendliness of the press, ransacked his memory for something harmless and yet possessed of colour.
‘Well, Miss Wiley, there is never perfection,’ he said. ‘From time to time, we do have our-our trifling embarrassments. I do recall the time that our late beloved King Gustaf V, who had known Queen Victoria and was giving out Nobel medallions and diplomas when he was in his nineties, and who had become extremely near-sighted in his advanced years, gave a Nobel Prize to his own secretary instead of the laureate by mistake.’
There was friendly laughter in the conference room, and Jacobsson felt encouraged. ‘King Gustaf-the Mr. G. of so many tennis tournaments-presented more Nobel medallions and diplomas than any other one of our monarchs. Every laureate left with admiration for his obvious nobility yet democratic bearing. I remember that Anatole France had just become a Communist when he met King Gustaf. It was thought that Anatole France might have some resentment for royalty. But King Gustaf’s simplicity won the old laureate over completely. Afterwards, Anatole France said, “The King of Sweden is a Bernadotte. He is accustomed to power. A President, on the other hand, always strikes one as a little new at the game.” As a sidelight, it may interest you to know that of all the many laureates that King Gustaf met and awarded prizes to, his favourite was the Irish poet, W. B. Yeats. On more than one occasion, I heard the King say that he admired Yeats the most because the poet had “the manners of a courtier”.’
Jacobsson realized that Sue Wiley was still standing, and he addressed himself to her. ‘But you were inquiring about excitements and embarrassments, were you not, Miss Wiley? I can think of one excitement where embarrassment was cleverly avoided. You know, on Ceremony afternoon, this afternoon, it is protocol that a laureate, after receiving his award from the King, retire backwards from the orchestra and up the steps to his seat on the platform. I remember that Mrs. Pearl Buck was much concerned about this. Dr. Enrico Fermi had received his award before her, and had made his way backwards to his seat with no difficulty. Pearl Buck wore a gold evening gown with a long train, and was distinctly handicapped. Nevertheless, her backward march from the King was made successfully amid thunderous applause from the audience. She had managed it, she told a friend later, by memorizing the pattern of the Oriental rug at her feet and following the design to her chair on the platform. However, another embarrassing incident took place at one Ceremony when two British laureates-it would be improper to identify them-accepted their awards from the King, forgot protocol, and turned their backs on the King as they went back to their seats. The Swedish people in the audience were deeply offended. In surprising contrast to omissions by democratic laureates, the Russians have always been unfailingly correct, their courtesy impeccable, their bows to His Majesty the deepest. I recall distinctly that in 1958 the Soviet nuclear authority, Dr. Igor Tamm, who was one of the three physics laureates, bowed so deeply that he almost dropped all his awards. Beyond such trifles, I fear I have nothing else, Miss Wiley. Our Ceremony usually takes place without incident, as you shall see for yourself at five o’clock this afternoon.’ He looked about him. ‘Are there any more questions?’
A hand fluttered high. ‘Count Jacobsson-’
‘Yes?’
‘What about the laureates today? They must be nervous, waiting for the Ceremony. Do you know what they are doing?’
‘I know what they should be doing,’ said Jacobsson. ‘They should be on their way to Concert Hall for a half-hour’s informal rehearsal of this afternoon’s Ceremony. However, yesterday the rehearsal was cancelled. So I am certain they are almost all resting at the Grand Hotel.’
‘Why was the rehearsal cancelled?’
‘Two laureates were unable to attend. There will be an announcement about this early in the afternoon from the Caroline Institute. I am permitted to say only this much-Dr. Farelli and Dr. Garrett are not resting-are engaged, this very moment, in an activity connected with their specialties…”
It was 10.52 in the morning.
In this outskirt area of Stockholm, the structure weirdly framed behind the steadily falling snow-as if Seurat had pecked out a building in pointillism, white-dotted dabs on transparent glass instead of canvas-was the Caroline Hospital. Blending with the moving snow were the shimmering rows of yellow lights shining through the winter morning from the infirmary corridors and wards.
Inside the Caroline Hospital, inside the third-floor surgery room, the banks of lights were the brightest, not dull yellow like the corridor bulbs, not stark white like the falling snow, but silvery clear and steady as the luminosity of a summer’s day in the early sunrise.
On the operating table, partially exposed but otherwise draped and shrouded, lay the unconscious patient, Count Rolf Ramstedt, seventy-two-year-old relative of H.R.H. the King of Sweden. Seconds ago, divested of the failing old heart that had been ravaged and weakened by atherosclerotic coronaries, he was being kept alive only by the five-thousand-dollar heart-lung bypass machine that supported his body tissues with oxygenated blood, while the gaping pericardium waited to be filled.
Bent over the patient now, in the disguise of the modern image of the Creator-gauze mask, gown, rubber gloves-was Dr. Erik Öhman, preparing to suture the living calf’s heart to the great vessels of the host. Flanking Öhman, also masked, gowned, and gloved, were the three young Swedish nurses and the lanky anæsthetist, now checking blood pressure.