The Lady of the Shroud - Bram Stoker (phonics reader txt) 📗

class="calibre2">RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued (Longe Intervallo).

February 10, 1908.

 

It is so long since I even thought of this journal that I hardly know

where to begin. I always heard that a married man is a pretty busy

man; but since I became one, though it is a new life to me, and of a

happiness undreamt of, I KNOW what that life is. But I had no idea

that this King business was anything like what it is. Why, it never

leaves me a moment at all to myself—or, what is worse, to Teuta. If

people who condemn Kings had only a single month of my life in that

capacity, they would form an opinion different from that which they

hold. It might be useful to have a Professor of Kingship in the

Anarchists’ College—whenever it is founded!

 

Everything has gone on well with us, I am glad to say. Teuta is in

splendid health, though she has—but only very lately—practically

given up going on her own aeroplane. It was, I know, a great

sacrifice to make, just as she had become an expert at it. They say

here that she is one of the best drivers in the Blue Mountains—and

that is in the world, for we have made that form of movement our own.

Ever since we found the pitch-blende pockets in the Great Tunnel, and

discovered the simple process of extracting the radium from it, we

have gone on by leaps and bounds. When first Teuta told me she would

“aero” no more for a while, I thought she was wise, and backed her up

in it: for driving an aeroplane is trying work and hard on the

nerves. I only learned then the reason for her caution—the usual

one of a young wife. That was three months ago, and only this

morning she told me she would not go sailing in the air, even with

me, till she could do so “without risk”—she did not mean risk to

herself. Aunt Janet knew what she meant, and counselled her strongly

to stick to her resolution. So for the next few months I am to do my

air-sailing alone.

 

The public works which we began immediately after the Coronation are

going strong. We began at the very beginning on an elaborate system.

The first thing was to adequately fortify the Blue Mouth. Whilst the

fortifications were being constructed we kept all the warships in the

gulf. But when the point of safety was reached, we made the ships do

sentry-go along the coast, whilst we trained men for service at sea.

It is our plan to take by degrees all the young men and teach them

this wise, so that at the end the whole population shall be trained

for sea as well as for land. And as we are teaching them the airship

service, too, they will be at home in all the elements—except fire,

of course, though if that should become a necessity, we shall tackle

it too!

 

We started the Great Tunnel at the farthest inland point of the Blue

Mouth, and ran it due east at an angle of 45 degrees, so that, when

complete, it would go right through the first line of hills, coming

out on the plateau Plazac. The plateau is not very wide—half a mile

at most—and the second tunnel begins on the eastern side of it.

This new tunnel is at a smaller angle, as it has to pierce the second

hill—a mountain this time. When it comes out on the east side of

that, it will tap the real productive belt. Here it is that our

hardwood-trees are finest, and where the greatest mineral deposits

are found. This plateau is of enormous length, and runs north arid

south round the great bulk of the central mountain, so that in time,

when we put up a circular railway, we can bring, at a merely nominal

cost, all sorts of material up or down. It is on this level that we

have built the great factories for war material. We are tunnelling

into the mountains, where are the great deposits of coal. We run the

trucks in and out on the level, and can get perfect ventilation with

little cost or labour. Already we are mining all the coal which we

consume within our own confines, and we can, if we wish, within a

year export largely. The great slopes of these tunnels give us the

necessary aid of specific gravity, and as we carry an endless water-supply in great tubes that way also, we can do whatever we wish by

hydraulic power. As one by one the European and Asiatic nations

began to reduce their war preparations, we took over their disbanded

workmen though our agents, so that already we have a productive staff

of skilled workmen larger than anywhere else in the world. I think

myself that we were fortunate in being able to get ahead so fast with

our preparations for war manufacture, for if some of the “Great

Powers,” as they call themselves, knew the measure of our present

production, they would immediately try to take active measures

against us. In such case we should have to fight them, which would

delay us. But if we can have another year untroubled, we shall, so

far as war material is concerned, be able to defy any nation in the

world. And if the time may only come peacefully till we have our

buildings and machinery complete, we can prepare war-stores and

implements for the whole Balkan nations. And then—But that is a

dream. We shall know in good time.

 

In the meantime all goes well. The cannon foundries are built and

active. We are already beginning to turn out finished work. Of

course, our first guns are not very large, but they are good. The

big guns, and especially siege-guns, will come later. And when the

great extensions are complete, and the boring and wire-winding

machines are in working order, we can go merrily on. I suppose that

by that time the whole of the upper plateau will be like a

manufacturing town—at any rate, we have plenty of raw material to

hand. The haematite mines seem to be inexhaustible, and as the

raising of the ore is cheap and easy by means of our extraordinary

water-power, and as coal comes down to the plateau by its own gravity

on the cable-line, we have natural advantages which exist hardly

anywhere else in the world—certainly not all together, as here.

That bird’s eye view of the Blue Mouth which we had from the

aeroplane when Teuta saw that vision of the future has not been in

vain. The aeroplane works are having a splendid output. The

aeroplane is a large and visible product; there is no mistaking when

it is there! We have already a large and respectable aerial fleet.

The factories for explosives are, of course, far away in bare

valleys, where accidental effects are minimized. So, too, are the

radium works, wherein unknown dangers may lurk. The turbines in the

tunnel give us all the power we want at present, and, later on, when

the new tunnel, which we call the “water tunnel,” which is already

begun, is complete, the available power will be immense. All these

works are bringing up our shipping, and we are in great hopes for the

future.

 

So much for our material prosperity. But with it comes a larger life

and greater hopes. The stress of organizing and founding these great

works is practically over. As they are not only self-supporting, but

largely productive, all anxiety in the way of national expenditure is

minimized. And, more than all, I am able to give my unhampered

attention to those matters of even more than national importance on

which the ultimate development, if not the immediate strength, of our

country must depend.

 

I am well into the subject of a great Balkan Federation. This, it

turns out, has for long been the dream of Teuta’s life, as also that

of the present Archimandrite of Plazac, her father, who, since I last

touched this journal, having taken on himself a Holy Life, was, by

will of the Church, the Monks, and the People, appointed to that

great office on the retirement of Petrof Vlastimir.

 

Such a Federation had long been in the air. For myself, I had seen

its inevitableness from the first. The modern aggressions of the

Dual Nation, interpreted by her past history with regard to Italy,

pointed towards the necessity of such a protective measure. And now,

when Servia and Bulgaria were used as blinds to cover her real

movements to incorporate with herself as established the provinces,

once Turkish, which had been entrusted to her temporary protection by

the Treaty of Berlin; when it would seem that Montenegro was to be

deprived for all time of the hope of regaining the Bocche di Cattaro,

which she had a century ago won, and held at the point of the sword,

until a Great Power had, under a wrong conviction, handed it over to

her neighbouring Goliath; when the Sandjack of Novi-Bazar was

threatened with the fate which seemed to have already overtaken

Bosnia and Herzegovina; when gallant little Montenegro was already

shut out from the sea by the octopus-like grip of Dalmatia crouching

along her western shore; when Turkey was dwindling down to almost

ineptitude; when Greece was almost a byword, and when Albania as a

nation—though still nominally subject—was of such unimpaired

virility that there were great possibilities of her future, it was

imperative that something must happen if the Balkan race was not to

be devoured piecemeal by her northern neighbours. To the end of

ultimate protection I found most of them willing to make defensive

alliance.

 

And as the true defence consists in judicious attack, I have no doubt

that an alliance so based must ultimately become one for all

purposes. Albania was the most difficult to win to the scheme, as

her own complications with her suzerain, combined with the pride and

suspiciousness of her people, made approach a matter of extreme

caution. It was only possible when I could induce her rulers to see

that, no matter how great her pride and valour, the magnitude of

northern advance, if unchecked, must ultimately overwhelm her.

 

I own that this map-making was nervous work, for I could not shut my

eyes to the fact that German lust of enlargement lay behind Austria’s

advance. At and before that time expansion was the dominant idea of

the three Great Powers of Central Europe. Russia went eastward,

hoping to gather to herself the rich north-eastern provinces of

China, till ultimately she should dominate the whole of Northern

Europe and Asia from the Gulf of Finland to the Yellow Sea. Germany

wished to link the North Sea to the Mediterranean by her own

territory, and thus stand as a flawless barrier across Europe from

north to south.

 

When Nature should have terminated the headship of the Empire-Kingdom, she, as natural heir, would creep southward through the

German-speaking provinces. Thus Austria, of course kept in ignorance

of her neighbour’s ultimate aims, had to extend towards the south.

She had been barred in her western movement by the rise of the

Irredentist party in Italy, and consequently had to withdraw behind

the frontiers of Carinthia, Carniola, and Istria.

 

My own dream of the new map was to make “Balka”—the Balkan

Federation—take in ultimately all south of a line drawn from the

Isle of Serpents to Aquileia. There would—must—be difficulties in

the carrying out of such a scheme. Of course, it involved Austria

giving up Dalmatia, Istria, and Sclavonia, as well as a part of

Croatia and the Hungarian Banat. On the contrary, she might look for

centuries of peace in the south. But it would make for peace so

strongly that each of