King Matt the First Read online

  The Prime Minister was very afraid, but he pretended that he was not in the least concerned. With the blue end of his pencil, he wrote “Fine, let there be war” on a sheet of paper and handed it to the foreign ambassador.

  The ambassador took the paper, bowed, and said: “All right, I will inform my government of this.”

  At that moment the doctor came into the hall, and all the ministers began pleading with him to save the king, for there could be trouble or even war if the king died.

  “I have already given the king all the medicines I know. I have put cupping glasses on him, and there is nothing more I can do. But we could call in other doctors.”

  The ministers took his advice. They summoned famous doctors to come consult on how to save the king and sent all the royal automobiles to the city to fetch them. Then they asked the royal cook for dinner because they were very hungry. They hadn’t known the meeting would last so long and so they didn’t eat dinner at home.

  The cook set out the silver dishes and poured the best wine into the carafes, because he wanted to stay at court even after the death of the old king.

  And so the ministers began eating and drinking and even began to grow merry. Meanwhile, the doctors had gathered in the hall.

  “I think,” said one old doctor with a beard, “that we must operate on the king.”

  “But I think,” said another doctor, “that we should put hot compresses on the king and he should gargle.”

  “The king must take powders,” said a famous professor.

  “Drops would be better, of course,” said another doctor.

  Each of the doctors had brought a thick book with him and each pointed out that his book said to treat the illness a different way.

  It was already late and the ministers very much wanted to go to sleep, but they had to wait to hear what all the doctors said. There was so much noise in the royal palace that the little heir to the throne, Matt, the king’s son, had already woken up twice.

  I ought to see what’s going on, thought Matt. He rose from his bed, dressed quickly, and went out to the corridor.

  He stood outside the door to the dining room, not to eavesdrop, but because in the royal palace the door handles were so high that little Matt couldn’t open the door himself.

  “The king has good wine,” shouted the Minister of Finance. “Let’s have some more, gentlemen. If Matt becomes king, he won’t need the wine, because children aren’t allowed to drink wine.”

  “Children aren’t allowed to smoke cigars, either. So we can each take a few cigars home,” cried the Minister of Commerce loudly.

  “And if there’s a war, gentlemen, I assure you that nothing will be left of this palace, because Matt won’t be able to defend us.”

  Everyone started laughing and shouting: “Let’s drink to the health of our defender, the great king, Matt the First.”

  Matt didn’t really understand what they were saying; he knew that his father was sick and that the ministers often held meetings, but why were they laughing at him, Matt, and why were they calling him the king, and what kind of war could there be? Matt did not understand at all.

  A little sleepy and a little scared, he went farther down the hall, and outside the door to the council room, he heard another conversation.

  “And I’m telling you that the king will die. You can give him all the powders and pills you want, nothing will do any good.”

  “I bet my life the king won’t last a week.”

  Matt stopped listening. He dashed down the corridor, past two other royal chambers, until, breathless, he reached the king’s bedroom.

  The king was lying in bed. It was hard for him to breathe, and he was very pale. The same good doctor who treated Matt when he was sick was sitting by the king’s bed.

  “Daddy, Daddy,” cried Matt with tears in his eyes. “I don’t want you to die.”

  The king opened his eyes and looked sadly at his son.

  “I don’t want to die either,” said the king softly. “I don’t want to leave you all alone in the world, my son.”

  The doctor put Matt on his lap, and no one said any more.

  Matt remembered that he had already done something like this once before. That time it was his father who had put him on his lap and it was his mother in the bed, pale and breathing with difficulty. Daddy will die like Mommy did, thought Matt.

  A terrible sadness tugged at his heart, and he felt a great anger and resentment for the ministers who were laughing at him, Matt, and at his daddy’s death.

  I’ll pay them back when I’m the king, thought Matt.

  THERE WAS A great procession at the king’s funeral. Black crepe was wound around the streetlights and all the bells were rung. The band played a funeral march. Cannons and soldiers went by. Special trains brought in flowers from the warmer countries. Everyone was very sad. The newspapers said that the whole nation wept for the loss of its beloved king.

  Matt was sitting in his room. He was sad, too, for even though he was to become king, he had lost his father and was now all alone in the world.

  Matt thought of his mother. It was she who had given him the name Matt. Although his mother had been the queen, she had not been distant and haughty at all: she played games and blocks with him, told him fairy tales, and explained the pictures in his books to him. Matt had not seen very much of his father, because the king was often with the army or with his guests, entertaining other kings. And he always had meetings and consultations.

  But whenever the king could find a free moment for Matt he would play ninepins or go out riding with him down the long tree-lined paths of the royal gardens, the king on a horse, Matt on a pony.

  But what would happen now? He’d be stuck with his boring foreign tutor, who always looked as if he had just drunk a glass of vinegar.

  And was it really so much fun to be a king? It probably wasn’t. If there really was a war, you could at least fight. But what does a king do in peacetime?

  Matt was sad when he was alone in his room, and he was sad when he looked through the gate of the royal gardens at the servants’ children playing happily in the palace courtyard.

  Seven boys were playing war, their usual game. They were always led into attack, drilled, and commanded by a small and very jolly boy. His name was Felek. That’s what the other boys called him.

  Many times Matt had wanted to call him over and even talk with him a little through the gate, but he did not know if he was allowed to and what would happen if he did, and he did not know what to say to start a conversation.

  Meanwhile, proclamations had been posted on every wall saying that Matt was now the king, that he sent greetings to his subjects, and that all the ministers would stay on and help the young king in his work.

  All the stores were full of photographs of Matt. Matt on a pony. Matt in a sailor suit. Matt in an army uniform. Matt reviewing the troops. The theaters showed newsreels about Matt. All the illustrated magazines in the country and abroad were full of Matt.

  To tell the truth, everyone loved Matt. The old people pitied him because he had lost both parents so young. The boys were happy that now there was a boy whom everyone had to obey; even generals had to stand at attention and grownup soldiers present arms when Matt was there. The girls liked the little king on his handsome pony. But the orphans loved him most of all.

  When the queen was still alive, she always sent candy to the orphanages on the holidays. After she died, the king had ordered that the candy continue to be sent. And though Matt knew nothing about it for a long time, candy and toys were being sent in his name to the orphans. Only much later did Matt learn that an entry in the budget could make people very happy without his even knowing about it. Six months after Matt had succeeded to the throne, he chanced to acquire great popularity. That means that everyone was talking about him, not just because he was the king, but because he had done something that people liked.

  I’ll tell you what happened. For a long time Matt begged his docto
r for permission to take walks around the city or at least to be brought once a week to the park where the children played.

  “I know the royal gardens are beautiful, but it’s boring to be alone even in the most beautiful gardens.”

  Finally, the doctor promised, and he applied through the marshal of the court to the palace administration; at the council of ministers, the king’s guardian obtained permission for King Matt to take three walks every two weeks.

  It might seem strange that it was so difficult for a king to go out for an ordinary walk. But the marshal of the court only agreed out of gratitude to the doctor, who had recently cured him when he had eaten a fish that was none too fresh. And the palace administration only gave its agreement because it hoped that now it would be given money to build a new stable, and the Minister of Internal Affairs (who was head of the police) only agreed to get even with the Minister of Finance. Every time the king went out for a walk, the police would receive three thousand ducats and the sanitation division a barrel of eau de cologne and a thousand gold ducats. Before King Matt left for his walk, two hundred workers and one hundred cleaning women would clean the park thoroughly. Before each walk, they would rake the park and repaint the benches. All the paths would be sprinkled with eau de cologne, the dust wiped from the trees and leaves. The doctors made sure that everything was clean and free of dust, because dirt and dust are unhealthy. The police made sure that there were no bad boys in the park who would throw stones, punch and shove, fight and shout, when the king was out walking.

  King Matt had a wonderful time. He wore regular clothes so no one would recognize him. And it never even entered anyone’s mind that the king would come to an ordinary park. King Matt walked all around the park twice and then asked if he could sit on a bench by the square where the children were playing. He had only been sitting there a little while when a girl came up to him and asked: “Do you want to play?”

  She took Matt by the hand and they started playing together. The girls were singing songs and going around in a circle. Then, while they were waiting to start a new game, the girl started talking to Matt.

  “Do you have a little sister?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What does your daddy do?”

  “My daddy is dead. He was the king.”

  The little girl must have thought Matt was joking, because she broke out laughing and said: “If my father was the king, he would have to buy me a doll that reached up to the ceiling.”

  She told him that her father was a captain in the fire department, that her name was Irenka, and that she loved the firemen, who sometimes let her ride on their horses.

  Matt would gladly have stayed longer, but he only had permission to stay until forty-three seconds past four-twenty.

  Matt waited impatiently for his next walk, but it rained, and they were too worried about his health to let him go out.

  The next time, Matt was playing ring-around-the-rosy with the girls when a few boys walked over and one of them shouted: “Look, a boy playing with girls.”

  They started laughing.

  King Matt noticed that he really was the only boy playing ring-around-the-rosy.

  “You should come play with us,” said the boy.

  Matt looked at him closely. It was Felek! The same boy Matt had wanted to meet so long ago.

  Felek looked closely at Matt, then shouted at the top of his lungs: “This kid looks just like King Matt!”

  Matt felt terribly embarrassed because everyone had started looking at him. He began running away as fast as possible toward the adjutant who had brought him to the park and who was also disguised in regular clothes. But, either from haste or from embarrassment, he fell and scraped his knee.

  At the council of ministers it was decided that the king could no longer be allowed to go out for walks. They would do everything the king wanted, but he could not go to regular parks because there were naughty children who would pick fights with him and laugh at him. The council of ministers could not allow the king to be laughed at; it was an insult to his royal honor.

  Matt was very upset, and for a long time he thought about his two days of happy games in the park. Then he remembered Irenka’s wish: She wants a doll that reaches up to the ceiling.

  Soon that was all he could think about.

  I am the king, after all, and I have the right to give orders. And everybody has to obey them. I’m learning to read and write just like all the other children. The multiplication tables are the same for kings as they are for everyone else. Why be a king if you can’t do what you want?

  So Matt rebelled, and during an audience he demanded very loudly that the Prime Minister buy the biggest doll in the world and send it to Irenka.

  “Your Royal Highness deigns to remark . . .” the Prime Minister began to say.

  Matt knew what would happen—that unbearable person would talk for a long time and say a lot of things that didn’t mean anything at all, and in the end, nothing would happen with the doll. Then Matt remembered how once that same minister had started to explain something to his father in the very same way. The king had stamped his foot and said, “That is my absolute wish.”

  And so Matt stamped his foot just like his father used to, and said very loudly: “Mr. Prime Minister, that is my absolute wish.”

  The Prime Minister looked at Matt in surprise, then wrote something down in his notebook and mumbled: “I will present your Royal Highness’s wish at the next council of ministers.”

  No one knows what was said at the next council of ministers, because their meeting was held behind closed doors. However, they did decide to buy the doll, and the Minister of Commerce ran around to all the stores for two days inspecting all the largest dolls. But a doll as big as the one Matt wanted was nowhere to be found. Then the Minister of Commerce summoned all the doll manufacturers to a meeting, and one manufacturer agreed to make the doll in four weeks at his factory, for a very high price. And when the doll was ready, he displayed it in the window of his store with a sign: The Purveyor to His Royal Majesty’s Court has produced this doll for Irenka, the daughter of a captain in the fire department.

  Right away, the newspapers began featuring photographs of the fire department fighting fires, as well as pictures of Irenka and her doll. People said that King Matt loved to watch the fire trucks go by and to watch fires. Someone wrote a letter to the newspaper saying he was ready to burn his own house down if their beloved King Matt loved fires. Many girls wrote letters to King Matt saying they, too, wanted dolls badly, but the secretary of the court never read those letters to Matt, because he had been strictly forbidden to by the Prime Minister, who was very angry about the entire affair.

  Crowds of people stood in front of the store for three days looking at the king’s present, and it was only on the fourth day that, by order of the prefect of police, the doll was taken off display so that the crowds would not block the trolleys and cars. For a long time, people talked about the doll and about Matt, who had given Irenka such a beautiful present.

  EVERY DAY, MATT would get up at seven o’clock in the morning, wash and dress, shine his boots himself, and make his bed. This custom had been established by his great-grandfather, the valiant king Paul the Conqueror. After washing and getting dressed, Matt would drink a glass of cod-liver oil and sit down to breakfast, which could not last more than sixteen minutes thirty-five seconds. That was because Matt’s grandfather, the good king Julius the Virtuous, had always taken that amount of time for his breakfast. Then Matt would go to the throne room, which was always very cold, and receive the ministers. There was no heat in the throne room because Matt’s great-grandmother, the wise Anna the Pious, had nearly been asphyxiated by a faulty stove when she was a little girl, and in memory of her lucky escape, she had decreed that the throne room not be heated for five hundred years.

  Matt would sit on the throne, his teeth chattering from the cold, while his ministers told him what was happening throughout the country. This wa
s very unpleasant because, for some reason, the news was always bad.

  The Minister of Foreign Affairs would tell him who was angry at them and who wanted to be their friend. Usually, Matt could not make heads or tails of any of it.

  The Minister of War would list how many fortresses were damaged, how many cannons were out of commission, and how many soldiers were sick.

  The Minister of the Railroads would say that they had to buy new locomotives.

  The Minister of Education would complain that the children weren’t studying, were late to school, that the boys were sneaking out to smoke cigarettes and were also tearing pages out of their workbooks. The girls were calling each other names and arguing, the boys were fighting, throwing stones, and breaking windows.

  The Minister of Finance was always angry that there was no money, and he didn’t want to buy new cannons or new machines because they cost too much.

  Then Matt would go to the royal gardens. For an hour he could run and play, but it wasn’t very much fun to play alone.

  So he was always ready enough to go back to his lessons. Matt was a good student, because he knew it was hard to be a king if you didn’t know anything. He quickly learned how to sign his name with a grand flourish. He had to learn French and all sorts of other languages so he could speak with other kings when he went to visit them.

  Matt would have been a better and more willing student if he had been able to ask all the questions that came to his mind.

  For example, Matt had been wondering for a long time whether it was possible to invent a magnifying glass which could make gunpowder catch on fire from far away. If Matt could invent a magnifying glass like that, he would declare war against all the other kings, and on the day before the battle, he would blow up all his enemies’ ammunition. He would win the war because he would be the only one left with ammunition, and then he would be a great king, even though he was so little. But his teacher shrugged his shoulders, made a face, and wouldn’t even answer Matt’s question.