Everything that can happen will happen, it's only a matter of time, and if we don't get to see it while we're around, it will be be cause we didn't live long enough. Anyway, just so that we're not accused of painting everything with colors drawn only from the left-hand side of the palette, some believe that an adaptation of this gentle story for television, some newspaper having first rescued it from the dusty shelves of the collective memory and brushed off the cobwebs, might help to restore to the shattered consciences of families the cult or cultivation of the incorporeal values of spirituality once nurtured by society, before the base materialism that currently prevails took possession of wills we imagined to be strong, but which were, in fact, the very image of a dreadful and incurable moral weakness. Let us not, however, give up hope. We are convinced that the moment the boy appears on the screen, half the country's population will race off in search of a handkerchief to dry their tears and the other half, being perhaps of a more stoical temperament, will allow the tears to roll down their face in silence, the better to show that remorse for some evil done or condoned is not necessarily an empty word. Let us hope we are still in time to save the grandparents.
Unexpectedly, and revealing a deplorably poor sense of timing, the republicans decided to choose this delicate occasion to make their voices heard. There were not many of them, they did not even have any representation in parliament, despite forming a political party and regularly standing for election. Nevertheless, they bragged about having a certain amount of social influence, especially in artistic and literary circles, whence came occasional manifestos which while, on the whole, well-written, were invariably bland and anodyne. They had shown no sign of life since the disappearance of death, not even, as one might expect from a supposedly radical opposition, in order to demand an explanation for the maphia's rumored participation in the ignoble traffic in the terminally dying. Now, taking advantage of the anxiety sweeping the country, torn as it was between the vanity of knowing itself to be unique on the whole planet and a feeling of deep disquiet because it was not like anywhere else, there they were bringing into question neither more nor less than the matter of the regime. Being, by definition, opponents of the monarchy and enemies of the throne, they thought they had discovered a new argument in favor of the necessary and urgent establishment of the republic. They said that it went against common logic for a country to have a king who would never die and who, even if he were to decide to abdicate tomorrow for reasons of age or declining mental health, would continue to be king, the first in an endless succession of enthronements and abdications, an endless sequence of kings lying in their beds awaiting a death that would never arrive, a stream of half-alive, half-dead kings who, unless they were kept in the corridors of the palace, would end up filling and finally overflowing the pantheon where their mortal ancestors had been received and who would now be nothing but bones detached from their hinges or musty, mummified remains. How much more logical it would be to have a president of the republic with a fixed term of office, a single mandate, at most two, and then he could go his own sweet way, live his own life, give lectures, write books, take part in congresses, colloquia and symposia, argue his point at roundtables, go around the world in eighty receptions, opine upon the length of skirts when they come back into fashion and on the reduction of ozone in the atmosphere if there is an atmosphere, he could, in short, do as he pleased. Better that than having to read every day in the newspapers and hear on television and radio the unalterable medical bulletin, still no change, about the patients in the royal infirmaries, which, it should be noted, having already been extended twice, would be about to be extended again. The plural of infirmaries is there to indicate that, as always happens with hospitals and the like, the men were kept separate from the women, that is, kings and princes on one side, queens and princesses on the other. The republicans were now challenging the people to assume their rightful responsibilities, to take destiny in their hands in order to inaugurate a new life and forge a new, flower-strewn path toward future dawns. This time their manifesto touched not only artists and writers, other social strata proved equally receptive to the happy image of the flower-strewn path and to those invocations of future dawns, and the result was an absolutely extraordinary flood of support from new militants ready to set off on a crusade which, just as a fish is a fish before and after it has been fished, had passed into history even before anyone knew it would turn out to be an historic event. Unfortunately, in the days that followed, the verbal manifestations of civic enthusiasm from the new supporters of this forward-looking, prophetic republicanism were not always as respectful as good manners and healthy democratic coexistence demand. Some even crossed the line of the most offensive vulgarity, saying, for example, when speaking of their royal highnesses, that they were not prepared to keep donkeys or dumb beasts with rings through their noses supplied with sponge cake. All people of good taste agreed that such words were not just inadmissible, they were unforgivable. It would have sufficed to say that the state coffers would be unable to continue to support the continual increase in expenditure of the royal household and its adjuncts, and everyone would have understood. It was true, but it did not offend.
It was this violent attack by the republicans, but, more important, the article's worrying prediction that, very soon, the aforementioned state coffers would be unable, with no end in sight, to continue paying old age and disability pensions, that prompted the king to let the prime minister know that they needed to have a frank conversation, alone, without tape recorders or witnesses of any kind. The prime minister duly arrived, inquired after the royal health, in particular after that of the queen mother, who, at new year, had been on the point of dying, but who nonetheless, like so very many others, still continued to breathe thirteen times a minute, even though her prostrate body beneath the canopy covering her bed showed few other signs of life. His majesty thanked him and said that the queen mother was bearing her sufferings with the dignity proper to the blood that still ran in her veins, and then turned to the matters on the agenda, the first of which was the republicans' declaration of war. I just don't understand what these people can be thinking of, he said, here's the country plunged in the worst crisis of its entire history, and there they are talking about regime change, Oh, I wouldn't worry, sir, all they're doing is taking advantage of the situation to spread what they call their plans for government, deep down, they're nothing but poor anglers fishing in some very murky waters, And, let it be said, showing a lamentable lack of patriotism. Indeed, sir, the republicans have ideas about the nation that only they can understand, if, that is, they do understand them, Their ideas don't interest me in the least, what I want to hear from you is if there's any chance they might force a change of regime, They don't even have any representation in parliament, sir, What I'm referring to is a coup d'etat, a revolution, Absolutely not, sir, the people are solidly behind their king, and the armed forces are loyal to the legitimate government, So I can rest easy, Completely, sir. The king made a cross in his diary next to the word republicans, and said, Good, then he asked, And what's all this about pensions not being paid, We are paying them, sir, but prospects do look pretty bleak, So I must have misread it, I thought there had been, shall we say, a suspension of payments, No, sir, but, as I say, the future is very worrying indeed, Worrying in what respect, In every respect, sir, the state could simply collapse like a house of cards, Are we the only country that finds itself in this situation, asked the king, No, sir, in the long term, the problem will affect everyone, but what counts is the difference between dying and not dying, a fundamental difference, if you'll forgive me stating the obvious, Sorry, but I don't quite understand, In other countries, it's normal for people to die, but here, sir, in our country, no one dies, think only of the queen mother, it seemed certain she was dying, but, no, she's still here, happily for us, of course, but really, I'm not exaggerating, the noose is well and truly around our necks, And yet I've heard rumors that some people are dying, That's true, sir, but it's merely a drop in the ocean, not all families can bring themselves to take that step, What step, Handing over their dying to the organization in charge of the suicides, But I don't understand, what's the point of them committing suicide if they can't die, Oh, they can, sir, And how do they manage it, It's a complicated story, sir, Well, tell it to me, we're alone, On the other side of the frontier, sir, people are still dying, You mean that this organization takes them there, Exactly, Is it a charitable organization, It helps us a little to slow down the mounting numbers of the terminally dying, but, as I said before, it's a drop in the ocean, And what is this organization. The prime minister took a deep breath and said, The maphia, sir, The maphia, Yes, sir, the maphia, sometimes the state has no alternative but to find someone else to do its dirty work, You've never said anything to me about this before, No, sir, I wanted to keep you out of a situation for which I take full responsibility, And the troops who were on the frontier, They had a job to do, What job was that, Of appearing to be an obstacle to the transportation of suicides, but not, in fact, being an obstacle at all, But I thought they were there to prevent an invasion, There never was such a danger, and, besides, we've made agreements with the governments of those other countries, and everything's under control, Apart from the matter of pensions, Apart from the matter of death, sir, if we don't start dying again, we have no future. The king made a cross beside the word pensions and said, Something needs to happen, Indeed, sir, something needs to happen.
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