and the emperor smiles continually, as
though his smile meant:

"Cheer away! What else can you do but cheer?..."

In the next coach rides the Duke of Xara, robed, crowned; he stares
rigidly over the vociferating crowd with the same glance that his mother
reserves for the populace. In the next to that, the new governor-general
of the capital, the head of the emperor's military household, the Duke
of Mena-Doni, a rougher soldier than the Marquis of Dazzara and a less
practised courtier, under whose military fist the white capital, like a
beaten slave, crouched low during the martial law proclaimed after a
single hour of disturbance that ventured to follow upon the emperor's
decision to dissolve the house of deputies. His coarse, sensual mouth
smiles with the same smile as that of the emperor, whose rude force he
seems to impersonate; and he too seems to say:

"Cheer away, shout hurrah!"

Then the following carriages: the imperial chancellor, Count Myxila; the
ministers: seven of them forming part of the twelve who wished to
resign, the others chosen from among the most authoritative of the old
nobility in the house of peers itself!

Cheer away, shout hurrah!

Behind the coaches of the higher court-officials, the Xara cuirassiers,
the crown-prince's own regiment; behind them, a regiment of colonials:
Africans, black as polished ebony, with eyes like beads, their thick
mouths thrust forwards, clad in the muslin-like snow of their burnouses;
behind them, two regiments of hussars on heavy horses, in their long,
green, gold-frogged coats and their tall busbies.

Was ever parliament opened thus before, with such a display of military
force? And outside the town, on the high parade-grounds, do not the
people know that there are troops drawn together from every province,
camping there for the manoeuvres, the date of which has been
accelerated? And the increased garrisons of the forts, the squadron in
the harbour? Do the people themselves feel that they can do nothing else
than cheer and is that why they are cheering now, happy once more in
their cheering, with Roman docility and southern submission, enamoured
of the emperor because of the weight of his crushing fist, loving the
crown-prince for the attractive charm of his attitude in the north, or
perhaps because they think him interesting after an unsuccessful attempt
on his life?

And they seem not to feel that, through the grenadiers presenting arms,
they see neither