As I trawled my dim brain for a means of continuing the conversation, Francoise’s companion touched her arm. “We must not detain your new friend, my dear.” His accent was clumsy, and he fixed me with a fish-like stare. “I am sure he has duties.”
We introduced ourselves formally—he turned out to be one Frederic Bourne, an aristocratic young Frenchman of no discernible occupation—and we shook hands even more stiffly.
Francoise watched this with a clinical amusement.
The music was done; the stewards dismantled the rope barriers, and the rows of dignitaries broke ranks. I turned to Francoise once more. “I have been pleased to meet you.”
“And I you,” she said rapidly in French. “At least, I was pleased to find that you were not one of that party of German pigs.”
These words shocked me. “Mam’selle,” I protested in her language, “you hold powerful views.”
“Does that surprise you?” She raised a perfect eyebrow. “You are a diplomat, sir; surely you understand the significance of the Ems telegram?”
This document was indeed the talk of Europe at that time. A dispute between France and Prussia had flared over King William’s proposal of his relative, Prince Leopold Hohenzollern, as candidate for the throne of Spain (which had been vacated by the scandalously promiscuous Queen Isabella). France, of course, had protested strongly; but representations made directly to William by the French ambassador had fallen on deaf ears. Now these representations had been portrayed insultingly by the Prussians in the famous Ems telegram.
“The document,” said the girl, “is an affront to France.”
I smiled, I hoped indulgently. “My dear mam’selle, such antique issues as the Spanish succession are scarcely of significance in the modern world.” I waved my hand at the marvels all around us. “And this, mam’selle, is the modern world!”
She frowned. “Really. Pray do not patronize me, sir. It is obvious to all but the most naпve—” I reddened “—that the Spanish candidature is indeed of little intrinsic interest, but it is the issue which the devious Bismarck is exploiting in order to provoke a war with France.”
I leaned toward her and quietly expressed the view of the British diplomatic corps. “To be honest, mam’selle, the Prussians are a bit of a joke, for all their posturing.” I ticked points on my fingers. “First, France possesses the finest army in Europe. Second, we live in an era of Rationality. There is a Balance of Power which has endured since the Congress of Vienna, which followed Bonaparte’s fall more than fifty years ago; and—”
She silenced me with a wave. “Bismarck is an opportunist. He cares nothing for your Balance; his motivation is his own ambition.”
I shook my head. “But how would a war with France serve him?”
“You must ask him that, Mr. Vicars. As for France, you are surely aware that we have already mobilized.”
I felt my mouth drop open, like some fish’s. “But—”
But the swarthy Bourne was touching her sleeve once more, and she terminated our conversation gracefully. I steadily cursed myself. To have allowed my conversation with this vision to meander into the obscurities of the Hohenzollern candidature! What had I been thinking of?
I called after her, “Perhaps I will see you later in the day…?”
But she was gone in the dissolving throng.
Exhibits were laid out around the Cathedral floor—and the balcony which circled the walls—under massive signs identifying their countries of origin. These signs were constructed from tubes glowing with electric light. Bismarck and his entourage toured the displays with patience and humor. They were particularly drawn by the stand from the United States of America. Among the Colt revolvers, tubs of chewing tobacco and other expressions of the American character, there was a reaping machine provided by the McCormick company; its steam stack and boiler looked large enough for a battleship, and the Prussians gathered in an awed group beneath six-feet-tall cutting blades.
A stranger, a short man with a round, mocking face, now leaned close to me. “Interesting juxtaposition, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me?”
“Here, before the fruits of modern, Anglo-Saxon inventiveness, we have the aging generals of the Old World; and even as their armies maneuver toward France they no doubt speculate about how this great American plowshare could be beaten into some mechanical sword.”
I laughed. “Having got to know these Prussians, I suspect you are right, sir.”
He held out his hand; I shook it. “My name is George Holden,” he said. He studied me, looking up into my face with a frank, clear stare; I judged him to be about forty, with ruddy, rather coarse features set out beneath a shock of black hair. An Albert watch-chain like a rope crossed an ample belly.
I introduced myself.
Holden said, “I am pleased to meet you. I feel fortunate to mingle with such company; I am a mere journalist, reporting on these festivities for the
The Prussians had now strolled to the Canadian exhibit. Bismarck picked up a Swiss knife the size of a small book which, a sign proclaimed proudly, bore no less than five hundred blades. A look of wonder on his face, the Iron Chancellor pulled out one outlandish blade after another. “Look at that,” said Holden sourly. “Like blessed children, aren’t they?”
Actually I thought Bismarck’s boyish enjoyment rather endearing; but I said nothing.
The party moved on at length to the largest stand—the British. My pulse quickened with anticipation as we approached; but the Germans, no doubt keen to score some obscure point, stalked past the spectacular exhibits quite rapidly, their graying military heads held erect. However, I saw more than one rheumy eye flicker involuntarily sideways; and as for myself, I stared hungrily, anxious to drink in every detail of these marvels.
The exhibit was dominated by large, gleaming machines which, with their brooding pistons and tall stacks, looked like caged animals in this delicate Cathedral. There was a new form of Light Rail train, with the locomotive shaped rather like a bullet with its stack mouth set flush with its hull. The locomotive looked light and graceful enough to fly, and was mounted on a length of the narrow single rail characteristic of the Light Rail. The novel bullet shape, my new acquaintance Holden told me, was designed to allow the air to slip past the bulk of the locomotive more easily, and so to enable the Light Rail to attain higher speeds. “But,” he explained, “it is the enormous concentration of heat energy provided by anti-ice—and the consequently high mechanical efficiency— which enables the construction of compact marvels like this.”
A single coach was attached to the locomotive (though a caption informed us that as many as fifty coaches could be hauled safely by this model). Through large picture windows I inspected comfortable couches upholstered in a rich velvet, and the gleam of brass and polished leather made the coach seem as inviting as the finest club lounge.
Another device which caught my eye was a novel form of digging machine. An enclosed carriage no larger than a gurney was fronted by a disc of hardened steel. This disc was some ten feet across and its face glittered with blades and scoops of all sizes. “This will revolutionize our extraction of coal and other minerals,” Holden said. “Here is another invention impossible without anti-ice; without the compact, clean boilers made feasible by anti-ice a machine like this would require a boiler and stack the size of a railway locomotive, and within the confines of a mine would choke on its own emissions in half an hour.”
We went on past models of new designs of steam presses and cotton mills. My boy’s imagination was caught by a model of the new King Edward Dock at Liverpool, complete with a shallow pool of water to represent the Mersey, and toy clippers and hauliers which actually floated!
Now the party paused; and, peering past the Prussians’ ramrod-stiff backs, I could see Bismarck being introduced to a tall, spare man of about seventy. This gentleman wore a battered stovepipe hat of the style of some thirty or forty years previously, and his face, framed by handsome, gray- speckled muttonchops, was a wrinkled mask of scars and burn marks, at the center of which rested an artificial nose sculpted from platinum.
Blue eyes glittered down at Bismarck, and the Chancellor’s hand was held as if it were month-dead
