The Days of the King by Filip Florian Page B

refrain. And give a whoop he did (to the astonishment of politicians, ministers, officers, advisers), as he finally, belatedly saw the tranquility of the sea and sky spread before him, and glimpsed the white palace stretching for two thousand feet along the strait, so familiar in its outlines and ornaments (for it had borrowed a number of features from Versailles and had closely copied the architecture of the Neues Palais Sanssouci). His lungs filled not with the salt scent of the breeze but with the air of childhood, and he was oblivious to the final advice of the adjutants and to the recapitulation of the ceremonials laid down for the audience with the padishah. He had forgotten his aching gums, absorbed as he was in the crinkled seaweed and the seagulls. On one of the marble-paved esplanades of the Dolmabahçe Sarayı, that Prussian prince, a Wallachian by adoption, who had arrived from the northern bank of the Danube but also, to be more accurate, from its very source, was saluted by a platoon of the guard. It seemed to him that not one of the soldiers with red fezzes resembled his little lead soldier. He was then conducted down a bright corridor, at the end of which Sultan Abdülaziz was waiting for him, with a calm and calming face, as his siesta and the events of the afternoon had probably been to his liking. He stood in the doorway, extending his hand to the prince. And from that moment, when the infusion of
Amanita muscaria,
or
Fliegenpilz,
began to take full effect, nothing turned out as it ought to have, in accordance with rules and rituals. Carol did not kneel and he did not kiss the hand proffered with such magnanimity; he merely inclined his head and shook the hand in a comradely fashion (as if he were in the barracks of the dragoon regiment), he did not take his place on the chair specially prepared for him, but pushed it aside and sat next to the sultan (on the soft, restful divan), he proved to be voluble, highly voluble, answering questions at length and in a muddled way, and pressing the padishah for his opinions (not those of the most serene ruler so much as those of a man blessed with a harem), he was not at all distracted when he was handed the
firman
of his appointment (that longed-for and enchanted document), but placed the
hatti-şerif
with the imperial seal on a table and went on describing an opera performance (
Die Zauberflöte,
in Bremen), he did not wait for Abdülaziz to enter the antechamber to be introduced to the distinguished members of the delegation from Bükrej, but hastened to call his ministers into the salon, asking the minister of foreign affairs, not the prime minister, to pick up the
firman
and place it about his person, he declared himself fascinated with the Bosporus and Istanbul, but above all with the seagulls, the crinkled seaweed, and the brightly glinting roofs. Although at the time his behavior provoked bewilderment and fear among his subjects, soon and forever afterward it was interpreted as dignified, audacious, canny, and incomparable, a sign of noble blood and devotion to homeland. And that afternoon, Karl Ludwig slept soundly and dreamed that he was riding a gray pony, then that he was shooting his pellet gun at wooden targets in the shape of hares, boars, and foxes. He awoke toward evening in a spacious room of the Küçüksu Palace. On the
secrétaire
by the window the
firman
of sovereignty was awaiting him, bound in leather, stitched with gold thread, written on waxed pages in the impeccable calligraphy of the Ottoman scribes, with the seals of the Sublime Porte and the curlicues of the Sultan's signature. He had a severe headache, and his wisdom tooth had also recovered its vigor. For a week, in spite of his demands for another cup of that sweetish infusion or at least its recipe, he had to content himself with extract of celandine. He conversed with the dragomans and ambassadors who arrived for audiences. He strolled at leisure around