-house, despite the police and the guard, had been battered into a
shapeless mass by the malcontents themselves....

And such is life: the emperor of a great country was shot dead by a
fanatic in the midst of his kith and kin and life went on.... The
country was as extensive as before: a rich, naturally beautiful,
southern empire; tall, snow-clad mountains in the north; medieval and
modern towns, lying in broad provinces; the residential capital itself,
white in its golden autumn sunshine, with its Imperial, beneath a blue
sky, close to the blue sea, round which circled the quays....

And such is the life of rulers: the emperor lay dead, killed by a simple
pistol-shot; and the court chamberlain was very busy, the masters of
ceremonies unable to agree; the pomp of an imperial funeral was prepared
in all its intricacy; through all Europe sped the after-shudder of
fright; every newspaper was filled with telegrams and long articles....

All this was because of one shot from a fanatic, a martyr for the
people's rights.

The Empress Elizabeth stared with wide-open eyes at the fate that had
overtaken her. Not thus had she ever pictured to herself that it would
come, thus, so rudely, in the midst of that festivity and in the
presence of their royal guest; thus, glancing past her, striking only
her husband and not crushing them all, at one blow, all their imperial
pride! It had come to pass and ... she still feared, she still went on
fearing, more now than before: for her son!... It seemed to her as if
she were fearing for the first time....

It was the day before the funeral of the Emperor Oscar, when the Duchess
of Xara, now the young empress, was seized with indisposition and the
doctors declared that she was _enceinte_.

The emperor's remains had already been removed in great pomp to Altara.
At St. Ladislas the Altarians were to see him lying in state between
thousands of flaming candles, with the brilliant insignia of the supreme
power at his feet; after that he was to be removed to the imperial vault
in the cathedral....

On that day too at Lipara, whose whiteness took tones of sombre twilight
beneath mourning decorations and flags flown at half-mast, the salutes
from Fort Wenceslas echoed over the town, thundering in dull tones their
regular, heavy, monotonous bombardment of farewell. Lonely,
majestically, in the town resounding with the salutes, stood the
Imperial, empty, with its caryatids staring with gloomy, do